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LIBRARY 

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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

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HAPPY  ENDING 

The  Collected  Lyrics  of 
LOUISE  IMOGEN  GUINEY 


HOUGHTON    MIFFLIN    COMPANY 
BOSTON    AND    NEW    YORK:    1909 


COPYRIGHT,    1909,   BY   LOUISE   IMOGEN  GUINEY 
ALL   RIGHTS    RESERVED 

Published    December  iqoq 


TO 

ANNE   WHITNEY 


PREFACE 

THIS  volume  has  been  garnered  from  the  au 
thor's  earlier  books.  Two  poems  have  been 
chosen  from  "  The  White  Sail"  (1887) ;  nine 
Oxford  Sonnets  from  a  privately  printed  book 
let  (1895),  since  added  to,  and  much  altered; 
and  many  lyrics,  under  a  revised  form,  from 
"A  Roadside  Harp  "  (1893), and  "The  Mar 
tyrs'  Idyl"  (1899),  plus  some  twenty  newer 
titles  transferred,  with  grateful  acknowledg 
ments,  from  McClures  Magazine,  The  Atlantic, 
Harpers,  Scribners,  and  The  Century.  The 
principle  of  exclusion  goes  far  enough  to  cover 
all  poems  in  narrative  form,  or  of  any  appreciable 
length,  or  translated;  also,  any  which  seemed 
out  of  keeping  with  the  character  of  the  present 
collection.  Such  as  that  is,  it  comprises  the  less 
faulty  half  of  all  the  author's  published  verse. 

L.  I.  G. 

BOSTON,  October  21,  1909. 


192682 


CONTENTS 

The  Kings  3 

The  Squall  § 

Open,  Time  9 

\^-The  Knight  Errant  (Donatella's  Saint  George}  1 1 

To  a  Dog's  Memory  13 

Memorial  Day  1 5 

Romans  in  Dorset :  A.D.MDCCCXCV  16 

Horologion  I  n 

I     His  Angel  to  his  Mother  2 1 

Autumn  Magic  23 
Five  Carols  for  Christmastime  : 

I.    The  Ox  he  Openeth  wide  the  Doore  25 

II.    Vines  Branching  Stilly  26 

\^  IIL    Three  without  Slumber  Ride  from  Afar      27 

IV.    Was  a  Soule  from  Farre  Away  28 

V.    The  Ox  and  the  Ass  29 

On  Leaving  Winchester  32 


IX 


Cobwebs  34 

Astra  a  35 

The  Yew-Tree  36 
Ten  Colloquies: 

I.    The  Search  38 

II.   Fact  and  the  Mystic  39 

v    ///.    The  Poet's  Chart  40 

IV.  Qf  the  Golden  Age  41 

V.    On  Time's  Threshold  42 

VI.    Wood-Doves  42 

VII.   Predicaments  43 

VIII.    The  Co-Eternal  44 

IX.   Stern  Aphrodite  44 

X.    The  Jubilee  45 

Winter  Boughs  46 

W.H.:     A.D.MDCCLXXFIII-MDCCCXXX  47 

\/The  Vigil-at-Arms  48 

yf  Friend's  Song  for  Simoisius  49 

\    v     To  an  Ideal  51 

/«  #  Ruin,  after  a  Thunder-Storm  53 

/  Mortui  54 
x 


Two  Irish  Peasant  Songs : 

XxxX        /•   In  Leinster  57 

II.   In  Ulster  58 

The  Japanese  Anemone  6 1 

Orisons  63 

The  Inner  Fate  :   A  Chorus  64 

The  Acknowledgment  66 

By  the  Trundle-Bed  67 

Arbor  hide  68 

The  Cherry  Bough  70 

\S\/'The  Wild  Ride  73 

Bedesfolk  75 
In  a  City  Street                                                           •   77 

Florentin:  A  DMDCCCXC  79 

A  Song  of  the  Lilac  80 

Monochrome  8 1 

&/»/  Francis  Endeth  his  Sermon  82 

An  E stray  83 

Friendship  Broken  85 

y/  Talisman  87 

Heathenesse  88 
xi 


For  Izaak  Walton  89 

Fifteen  Epitaphs  9 1 

Deo  Optimo  Maximo  98 

Ch arista  Musing  99 

The  Still  of  the  Tear  IOO 

A  Footnote  to  a  Famous  Lyric  IO2 

T.    //^.    P.:     A  D  MDCCCX1X-MDCCCXCII  1 04 

Summum  Bonum  105 

When  on  the  Marge  of  Evening  106 

//y/tfj-  107 

Nocturne  .               1 09 

To  Henry  Howard,  Earl  of  Surrey  no 

Planting  the  Poplar  ill 

To  One  Who  would  not  Spare  Himself  1 1 3 

Winter  Peace  114 

Sleep  1 1 6 
/^r//  i»  my  Lord  Clarendon's  History  of  the 

Rebellion  1 1 7 

7w  a  February  Garden  (Somerset,  England}  118 

4  Valediction.     (R.  L.  S. :   A.DMDCCCXCir)  120 

A  Footpath  Morality  1 2 1 

xii 


The  Light  of  the  House  123 

An  Outdoor  Litany  125 

Of  Joan's  Youth  127 

In  a  Brecon  Valley  128 

A  Song  of  Far  Travel  130 

Spring  131 

e  Colour-Bearer  132 

Sanctuary  1 34 

Emily  Bronte  135 

/Wrf/  136 

Borderlands  137 

Ode  for  a  Master  Mariner  Ashore  138 

Oxford  and  London :   XXVI  Sonnets 
Oxford: 

I.    The  Tow- Path  145 

//.   Ad  Antiquarium  146 

///.   Martyrs'  Memorial  147 

IV.   Parks  Road  148 

V.    Tom  149 

^7,  Via.    On  the  Pre-Ref or  motion 

Churches  about  Oxford  150 
xiii 


VII.   A  December  Walk  152 

VIII.   The  Old  Dial  of  Corpus  153 

IX.   Rooks:  New  College  Gardens  154 

X.  Above  Port  Meadow  155 

XL    Undertones  at  Magdalen  156 

XII,  XII a.  A  Last  View  157 

London  : 

I.    On  First  Entering  Westminster  Abbey      159 

//.   Fog  160 

///.   St.  Peter-ad-Vincula  161 

IV.   Strikers  in  Hyde  Park  162 

V.    Changes  in  the  Temple  163 

VI.    The  Lights  of  London  1 64 

VII.  Doves  165 

VIII.   In  the  Reading-Room  of  the  British 

Museum  1 66 

IX.   Sunday  Chimes  in  the  City  167 

X.  A  Porch  in  Belgravia  168 

XL    York  Stairs  169 

XII.  In  the  Docks  170 

Notes  171 


HAPPY   ENDING 


The  Kings 

A  MAN  said  unto  his  Angel : 
"My  spirits  are  fallen  low, 
And  I  cannot  carry  this  battle  : 
O  brother !  where  might  I  go  ? 

"  The  terrible  Kings  are  on  me 
With  spears  that  are  deadly  bright ; 
Against  me  so  from  the  cradle 
Do  fate  and  my  fathers  fight/' 

Then  said  to  the  man  his  Angel : 
"  Thou  wavering  witless  soul, 
Back  to  the  ranks  !  What  matter 
To  win  or  to  lose  the  whole, 

"  As  judged  by  the  little  judges 
Who  hearken  not  well,  nor  see  ? 
Not  thus,  by  the  outer  issue, 
The  Wise  shall  interpret  thee. 

"  Thy  will  is  the  sovereign  measure 
And  only  event  of  things  : 


The  puniest  heart,  defying, 

Were  stronger  than  all  these  Kings. 

"  Though  out  of  the  past  they  gather, 
Mind's  Doubt,  and  Bodily  Pain, 
And  pallid  Thirst  of  the  Spirit 
That  is  kin  to  the  other  twain, 


"  And  Grief,  in  a  cloud  of  banners, 
And  ringletted  Vain  Desires, 
And  Vice,  with  the  spoils  upon  him 
Of  thee  and  thy  beaten  sires,  — 

"  While  Kings  of  eternal  evil 
Yet  darken  the  hills  about, 
Thy  part  is  with  broken  sabre 
To  rise  on  the  last  redoubt ; 

"  To  fear  not  sensible  failure, 
Nor  covet  the  game  at  all, 
But  fighting,  fighting,  fighting, 
Die,  driven  against  the  wall." 


The  Squall 


WHILE  all  was  glad, 

It  seemed  our  birch-tree  had, 

That  August  hour,  intelligence  of  death ; 

For  warningly  against  the  eaves  she  beat 

Her  body  old,  lamenting,  prophesying, 

And  the  hot  breath 

Of  ferny  hollows  nestled  at  her  feet 

Spread  out  in  startled  sighing. 

Across  an  argent  sea, 

Distinct  unto  the  farthest  reef  and  isle, 

The  clouds  began  to  be. 

Huge  forms  'neath  sombre  draperies,  awhile 

Made  slow  uncertain  rally ; 

But  as  their  ranks  conjoined,  and  from  the  north 

The  leader  shook  his  lance,  Oh,  then  how  fair 

Unvested,  they  stood  forth, 

In  diverse  armour,  plumed  majestically, 

Each  with  his  own  esquires,  a  King  in  air  ! 

Up  moved  the  dark  vanguard, 

With  insolent  colours  that  o'erdusked  the  skies, 

5 


And  trailed  from  beach  to  beach : 

Massed  orange  and  mould-green ;  vermilion 

barred 

On  bronze  or  mottled  silver ;  saffron  dyes 
And  purples  migratory 
Fanned  each  in  each, 
As  the  long  column  broke,  athirst  for  glory. 

Sudden,  the  thunder ! 

Upon  the  roofed  verandas  how  it  rolled, 

Twice,  thrice :  a  thud  and  flame  of  doom  that 

told 

New-fallen,  nor  far  away, 
Some  black  destruction  on  the  innocent  day. 
And  little  Everard 

Deep  in  the  hammock  under,  eyes  alight 
With  healthful  fear  and  wonder 
The  brave  do  ne'er  unlearn, 
Clenched  his  soft  hand,  and  breathing  hard, 
Smiled  there  against  his  father,  like  a  knight 
Baptized  on  Cressy  field  or  Bannockburn. 

A  moment  gone, 

Into  our  paradise  from  Acheron, 

6 


With  imperceptive  sorcery  crawled  ashore 

Odours  unnamable :  an  exhalation 

Of  men  and  ships  in  oozy  graves.    (Ah,  cease, 

Derisive  nereids !  cease  : 

Be  it  enough,  that  even  ye  can  pour, 

From  crystal  flagons  of  your  ancient  peace, 

So  strange  obscene  libation.) 

But  with  the  thunder-peal 

Sprang  the  pure  winds,  their  thurible  swung 

wide, 

To  chase  that  tainted  tide ; 
Fresh  from  the  pastures  and  the  cedar-grove, 
They  rode  the  copper  ridges  of  the  main, 
And  bared  a  league  of  distance  to  reveal 
A  sail,  aslant,  astrain, 
Impetuous  for  the  cove; 
And  tossing  after,  panic-stricken, 
Another,  and  a   third:   white  spirits,  fain  to 

sicken, 
Nor  out  of  natural  harm  salvation  gain. 

The  selfsame  hunter  winds  that  drave 
The  horror  down,  as  faithful-hearted  drew 
The  sad  clouds  from  their  carnage,  and  up-piled 

7 


Their  rebel  gonfalons,  or  jocund  threw 

Their  cannon  in  the  wave ; 

And  subtly,  with  a  parting  whisper,  gave 

An  eve  most  mild : 

A  sunset  like  a  prayer,  a  world  all  rose  and  blue  : 

A  good  world,  as  it  was, 

And  as  it  shall  be :  clear  circumferent  space, 

Where   punctual  yet,    for    worship    of  their 

Cause, 

The  stars  came  thick  in  choir. 
Sleep  had  our  Everard  in  her  cool  embrace, 
Else  from  his  cot  he  hardly  need  have  stooped 
To  see  (and  laugh  to  see!)  the  headland  pine 
Embossed  on  changing  fire : 
For  close  behind  it,  cooped 
Within  a  smallest  span, 
In  fury,  to  and  fro  and  round  and  round, 
The  routed  leopards  of  the  lightning  ran  : 
Bright,  bright,  inside  their  dungeon-bars,  ma 
lign 
They  ran ;  and  ran  till  dawn,  without  a  sound. 


Open,  "Time 


OPEN,  Time,  and  let  him  pass 
Shortly  where  his  feet  would  be  ! 
Like  a  leaf  at  Michaelmas 
Swooning  from  the  tree, 

Ere  its  hour  the  manly  mind 
Trembles  in  a  sure  decrease, 
Nor  the  body  now  can  find 
Any  hold  on  peace. 

Take  him,  weak  and  overworn ; 
Fold  about  his  dying  dream 
Boyhood,  and  the  April  morn, 
And  the  rolling  stream  : 

Weather  on  a  sunny  ridge, 
Showery  weather,  far  from  here ; 
Under  some  deep-ivied  bridge, 
Water  rushing  clear : 

Water  quick  to  cross  and  part 
(Golden  light  on  silver  sound), 


Weather  that  was  next  his  heart 
All  the  world  around! 

Soon  upon  his  vision  break 
These,  in  their  remembered  blue ; 
He  shall  toil  no  more,  but  wake 
Young,  in  air  he  knew. 

He  hath  done  with  roofs  and  men, 
Open,  Time,  and  let  him  pass, 
Vague  and  innocent  again, 
Into  country  grass. 


10 


The  Knight  Errant 

(Donatella  s  Saint  George] 

SPIRITS  of  old  that  bore  me, 
And  set  me,  meek  of  mind, 
Between  great  dreams  before  me, 
And  deeds  as  great  behind, 
Knowing  humanity  my  star 
As  first  abroad  1  ride, 
Shall  help  me  wear  with  every  scar 
Honour  at  eventide. 

Let  claws  of  lightning  clutch  me 

From  summer's  groaning  cloud, 

Or  ever  malice  touch  me, 

And  glory  make  me  proud. 

Oh,  give  my  youth,  my  faith,  my  sword, 

Choice  of  the  heart's  desire  : 

A  short  life  in  the  saddle,  Lord  ! 

Not  long  life  by  the  fire. 

Forethought  and  recollection 
Rivet  mine  armour  gay  ! 

ii 


The  passion  for  perfection 

Redeem  my  failing  way ! 

The  arrows  of  the  upper  slope 

From  sudden  ambush  cast, 

Rain  quick  and  true,  with  one  to  ope 

My  Paradise  at  last ! 

I  fear  no  breathing  bowman, 
But  only,  east  and  west, 
The  awful  other  foeman 
Impowered  in  my  breast. 
The  outer  fray  in  the  sun  shall  be, 
The  inner  beneath  the  moon; 
And  may  Our  Lady  lend  to  me 
Sight  of  the  Dragon  soon  ! 


12 


To  a  Dogs  Memory 

THE  gusty  morns  are  here, 
When  all  the  reeds  ride  low  with  level  spear ; 
And  on  such  nights  as  lured  us  far  of  yore, 
Down  rocky  alleys  yet,  and  through  the  pine, 
The  Hound-&star  and  the  pagan  Hunter  shine: 
But  I  and  thou,  ah,  field-fellow  of  mine, 
Together  roam  no  more. 

Soft  showers  go  laden  now 
With  odours  of  the  sappy  orchard-bough, 
And  brooks  begin  to  brawl  along  the  march; 
Steams  the  late  frost  from  hollow  sedges  high ; 
The  finch  is   come,   the  flame-blue   dragon- 

%, 

The  marsh-born  marigold  that  children  spy, 
The  plume  upon  the  larch. 

There  is  a  music  fills 

The  oaks  of  Belmont  and  the  Wayland  hills 
Southward  to  Dewing's  little  bubbly  stream, — 
The  heavenly  weather's  call!  Oh,  who  alive 
Hastes  not  to  start,  delays  not  to  arrive, 

13 


Having  free  feet  that  never  felt  a  gyve 
Weigh,  even  in  a  dream  ? 
But  thou,  instead,  hast  found 
The  sunless  April  uplands  underground, 
And  still,  wherever  thou  art,  I  must  be. 
My  beautiful!  arise  in  might  and  mirth, 
(For  we  were  tameless  travellers  from  our  birth); 
Arise  against  thy  narrow  door  of  earth, 
And  keep  the  watch  for  me. 


Memorial  Day 

O  DAY  of  roses  and  regret, 
Kissing  the  old  graves  of  our  own! 
Not  to  the  slain  love's  lovely  debt 
Alone. 

But  jealous  hearts  that  live  and  ache, 
Remember;  and  while  drums  are  mute, 
Beneath  your  banners'  bright  outbreak, 
Salute : 

And  say  for  us  to  lessening  ranks 

That  keep  the  memory  and  the  pride, 

On  whose  thinned  hair  our  tears  and  thanks 

Abide, 

Who  from  their  saved  Republic  pass, 
Glad  with  the  Prince  of  Peace  to  dwell : 
Hail,  dearest  few!  and  soon ,  alas. 
Farewell. 


Romans  in  Dorset 

A.  D.  MDCCCXCV 

A  STUPOR  on  the  heath, 
Anc}  wrath  along  the  sky ; 
Space  everywhere ;  beneath 
A  flat  and  treeless  wold  for  us,  and  darkest 
noon  on  high. 

Sullen  quiet  below, 
But  storm  in  upper  air! 
A  wind  from  long  ago, 

In  mouldy  chambers  of  the  cloud  had  ripped 
an  arras  there, 

And  singed  the  triple  gloom, 
And  let  through,  in  a  flame, 
Crowned  faces  of  old  Rome  : 
Regnant  o'er  Rome's  abandoned  ground,  pro 
cessional  they  came. 

Uprisen  as  any  sun 
Through  vistas  hollow  grey, 
Aloft,  and  one  by  one, 
16 


In  brazen  casques  the  Emperors  loomed  large, 
and  sank  away. 

In  ovals  of  wan  light 
Each  warrior  eye  and  mouth : 
A  pageant  brutal  bright 

As  if  once  over  loudly  passed  Jove's  laughter 
in  the  south ; 

And  dimmer,  these  among, 
Some  cameo'd  head  aloof, 
With  ringlets  heavy-hung, 
Like  yellow  stonecrop  comely  grown  around  a 
castle  roof. 

An  instant:  gusts  again, 
Then  heaven's  impacted  wall, 
The  hot  insistent  rain, 

The  thunder-shock ;  and  of  the  Past  mirage 
no  more  at  all, 

No  more  the  alien  dream 
Pursuing,  as  we  went, 
With  glory's  cursed  gleam : 
Nor  sin  of  Caesar's  ruined  line  engulfed  us, 
innocent. 

17 


The  vision  great  and  dread 
Corroded ;  sole  in  view 
Was  empty  Egdon  spread, 
Her  crimson  summer  weeds  ashake  in  tem 
pest  :   but  we  knew 

What  Tacitus  had  borne 
In  that  wrecked  world  we  saw ; 
And  what,  thine  heart  uptorn, 
My  Juvenal !  distraught  with  love  of  violated 
Law. 


18 


Horologion 

THE  frost  may  form  apace, 
The  roses  pine  away  : 
Nomaea  !  if  I  see  thy  face, 
Then  is  the  summer  day. 

A  word  of  thine,  a  breath, 

And  lo !  my  joy  shall  seem 

To  peer  far  down  where  life  and  death 

Stir  like  a  forded  stream  ; 

Or  else  shall  misery  sound 

And  travel  in  that  hour 

All  utmost  things  in  their  shut  round, 

As  a  bee  feels  his  flower. 

Thought  lags  and  cries  Alas, 
Love  ranges  quick  and  free. 
Oh,  figured  clock  and  sanded  glass, 
They  mark  no  term  for  me. 

And  since  I  can  but  rue 
The  calendar  gone  wrong, 

19 


And  dials  never  telling  true 
If  dreams  be  short  or  long, 

Dear,  from  these  arts  that  fail 
To  thee  I  will  repair. 
Till  the  last  eve  dance  down  the  gale 
With  no  star  in  her  hair, 

Be  thou  my  solar  chime, 

Be  thou  my  wheel  of  night, 

Be  thy  bright  heart,  not  ashen  Time, 

My  measure,  law,  and  light. 


His  Angel  to  his  Mother 

WHAT  would  you  do  for  your  fairest  one, 
Wild  as  the  wind  and  free  as  the  sun, 
Born  a  fugitive,  sure  to  slip 
Soon  from  secular  ownership  ? 
Men  in  search  of  the  heart's  desire, 
Wearily  trampling  flood  and  fire, 
Rove  betimes  into  some  abyss 
Darker  far  than  eternity's. 
(Ah,  the  hazard!  it  awes  one  so  !) 

And  shall  it  be  thus  with  the  boy,  or  no  ? 
Sweet,  if  you  love  him,  let  him  go. 


Happy  the  Frontier  to  have  gained 
Undetaining  and  undetained, 
Quick  and  clean,  like  a  solar  ray 
Shot  through  spindrift  across  the  bay! 
Men  would  follow  a  long  vain  quest, 
Feed  on  ashes  and  forfeit  rest, 
Bleed  with  battle  and  flag  with  toil, 
Only  to  stifle  in  desert  soil. 
(Ah,  the  failure !  it  stings  one  so !) 

21 


And  shall  it  be  thus  with  the  boy,  or  no  ? 
Sweet,  if  you  love  him,  let  him  go. 

Vats  fill  up,  and  the  sheaves  are  in : 
Never  a  blessing  is  left  to  win 
Save  for  the  myrtle  coronal 
Round  the  urn  at  the  end  of  all. 
Men  will  clutch,  as  they  clutched  of  old. 
Souring  honey  or  dimming  gold, 
Not  the  treasure-trove  of  the  land 
Here  shut  fast  in  a  roseleaf  hand. 
(Ah,  the  folly !  it  irks  one  so  !) 

And  shall  it  be  thus  with  the  boy,  or  no  ? 
Sweet,  if  you  love  him,  let  him  go. 


22 


Autumn  Magic 


SOON  as  divine  September,  flushing  from  sea 

to  sea, 
Peers  from  the  whole  wide  upland  into  eternity, 

Soft  as  an  exhalation,  ghosts  of  the  thistle 
start : 

Never  a  poet  saw  them  but  ached  in  his  baf 
fled  heart. 

Gossamer  armies  rising  thicker  than  snow- 
flakes  fall, 

Waken  in  blood  and  marrow,  aware  of  the 
unheard  call. 

Oh,  what  a  nameless  urging  through  avenues 

laid  in  air, 

Hints  of  escape,  unbodied,  intricate,  every 
where, 

Sense  of  a  feared  denial,  or  access  hard  to  be 

won  ; 
Gleams  of  a  dubious  gesture  for  guesses  to 

feed  upon! 


Flame  goes  flying  in  heaven,  the  down  on  the 
cool  hillside  : 

Earth  is  a  bride-veil  glory  to  show  and  con 
ceal  the  Bride. 


Five  Carols  for  Christmastide 


THE  Ox  he  openeth  wide  the  Doore, 

And  from  the  Snowe  he  calls  her  inne, 

And  he  hath  seen  her  Smile  therefor, 

Our  Ladye  without  Sinne. 

Now  soone  from  Sleep 

A  Starre  shall  leap, 

And  soone  arrive  both  King  and  Hinde  : 

Amen,  Amen  : 
But  O,  the  Place  co'd  I  but  finde  ! 

The  Ox  hath  hush'd  his  voyce  and  bent 

Trewe  eyes  of  Pitty  ore  the  Mow, 

And  on  his  lovelie  Neck,  forspent, 

The  Blessed  layes  her  Browe. 

Around  her  feet 

Full  Warme  and  Sweete 

His  bowerie  Breath  doth  meeklie  dwell  : 

Amen,  Amen  : 
But  sore  am  I  with  Vaine  Travel  ! 

The  Ox  is  host  in  Judah  stall 
And  Host  of  more  than  onelie  one, 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


For  close  she  gathereth  withal 

Our  Lorde  her  littel  Sonne. 

Glad  Hinde  and  King 

Their  Gyfte  may  bring, 

But  wo'd  to-night  my  Teares  were  there, 

Amen,  Amen  : 
Between  her  Bosom  and  His  hayre  ! 

II 

VINES  branching  stilly 
Shade  the  open  door. 
In  the  house  of  Zion's  Lily, 
Cleanly  and  poor. 
Oh,  brighter  than  wild  laurel 
The  Babe  bounds  in  her  hand, 
The  King,  who  for  apparel 
Hath  but  a  swaddling-band, 
And  sees  her  heavenlier  smiling  than  stars  in 
His  command  ! 

Soon,  mystic  changes 
Part  Him  from  her  breast, 
Yet  there  awhile  He  ranges 
Gardens  of  rest : 
26 


Yea,  she  the  first  to  ponder 
Our  ransom  and  recall, 
Awhile  may  rock  Him  under 
Her  young  curls'  fall, 
Against  that  only  sinless  love-loyal  heart  of  all. 

What  shall  inure  Him 
Unto  the  deadly  dream, 
When  the  Tetrarch  shall  abjure  Him, 
The  thief  blaspheme, 
And  scribe  and  soldier  jostle 
About  the  shameful  tree, 
And  even  an  Apostle 
Demand  to  touch  and  see?  — 
But  she  hath  kissed   her   Flower  where  the 
Wounds  are  to  be. 


ill 


THREE  without  slumber  ride  from  afar, 
Fain  of  the  roads  where  palaces  are ; 
All  by  a  shed  as  they  ride  in  a  row, 
"  Here  ! "  is  the  cry  of  their  vanishing  Star. 

27 


First  doth  a  greybeard,  glittering  fine. 
Look  on  Messiah  in  slant  moonshine : 
"  This  have  I  bought  for  <Thee  !  "  Vainly  :  for  lo, 
Shut  like  a  fern  is  the  young  hand  divine. 

Next  doth  a  magian,  mantled  and  tall, 
Bow  to  the  Ruler  that  reigns  from  a  stall : 
'"This  have  I  sought  for  'Thee!"  Though  it 

be  rare, 
Loath  little  fingers  are  letting  it  fall. 

Last  doth  a  stripling,  bare  in  his  pride, 

Kneel  by  the  Lover  as  if  to  abide : 

"  fbis  have  I  wrought  for  Thee  !  "   Answer  him 

there 
Laugh  of  a  Child,  and  His  arms  opened  wide. 

IV 

WAS  a  Soule  from  farre  away 

Stood  wistful  in  the  Hay, 

And  of  the  Babe  a-sleeping  hadde  a  sight : 

Neither  reck'd  hee  any  more 

Men  behind  him  and  before, 

Nor  a  thousand  busie  Winges,  flitting  light : 

28 


But  in  middle  of  the  night 
This  few-worded  wight 

(Yule!  Yule!} 
Bespake  Our  Ladye  bright: 

"  Fill  mee,  ere  my  corage  faints, 

With  the  lore  of  all  the  Saints : 

Harte  to  harte  against  my  Brother  let  mee  be. 

By  the  Fountaines  that  are  His 

I  wo'd  slumber  where  Hee  is: 

Prithee,  Mother,  give  the  other  Brest  to  mee  !  " 

The  Soule  that  none  co'd  see 

She  hath  taken  on  her  knee : 

(Yule!  Yule!) 
Sing  prayse  to  Our  Ladye. 


<Tbe  Ox  and  the  Ass, 

Tell  aloud  of  them  : 

Sing  their  pleasure  as  it  was 

In  Bethlehem. 

STILL  as  blowing  rose,  sudden  as  a  sword, 
Maidenly  the   Maiden  bare  Jesii  Christ  the 
Lord; 

29 


Yet  for  very  lowlihood,  such  a  Guest  to  greet, 
Goeth  in  a  little  swoon  while  kissing  of  His 
feet. 

Mary,  drifted  snow  on  the  earthen  floor, 

Joseph,  fallen  wondrous  weak  now  he  would 
adore,  — 

(Oh,  the  surging  might  of  love!  Oh,  the  drown 
ing  bliss  !) 

Both  are  rapt  to  Heaven  and  lose  their  human 
Heaven  that  is. 


From  the  Newly  Born  trails  a  lonely  cry. 

With  a  mind  to  heed,  the  Ox  turns  a  glowing 
eye; 

In  the  empty  byre  the  Ass  thinks  her  heart  to 
blame : 

Up  for  comforting  of  God  the  beasts  of  bur 
den  came, 

Softly  to  inquire,  thrusting  as  for  cheer 
There  between  the  tender  hands,  furry  faces 
dear. 

30 


Blessing  on  the  honest  coats !  tawny  coat  and 

grey 
Friended  Our  Delight  so  well  when  warmth 

had  strayed  away. 

Crooks  are  on  the  sill;  sceptres  sail  the  wave; 
All  the  hopes  of  all  the  years  are  thronging 

to  the  Cave. 
Mother  slept  not  long,  nor  long  Father's  sense 

was  dim, 
But  another  twain  the  while  stood  parent-wise 

to  Him. 

The  Ox  and  the  Ass, 
Be  you  glad  for  them 
Such  a  moment  came  to  pass 
In  Bethlehem! 


On  Leaving  Winchester 

WINTON,  my  window  with  a  mossy  marge, 
My  lofty  oriel,  whence  the  soul  hath  sight 
Of  passionate  yesterdays,  all  gold  and  large. 
Arisen  to  enrich  our  narrow  night: 
Though  others  bless  thee,  who  so  blest  before 
Hath  pastured  from  the  violent  time  apart, 
And  laved  in  supersensual  light  the  heart 
Alone  with  thy  magnificent  No  More  ? 

Sweet  court  of  roses  now,  sweet  camp  of  bees! 
The  hills  that  lean  to  thy  white  bed  at  dawn 
Hear,  for  the  clash  of  raging  dynasties, 
Laughter  of  boys  about  a  branchy  lawn. 
Hast  thou  a  stain,  let  ivy  cover  all ; 
Nor  seem  of  greatness  disinhabited 
While  spirits  in  their  wonted  splendour  tread 
From  close  to  close,  by  Wolvesey's  idle  walL 

Bright  fins  against  thy  lucid  waters  leap, 
And  nigh  thy  towers  the  nesting  ring-doves 
dwell ; 


Be  lenient  winter,  and  long  moons,  and  sleep 
Upon  thee ;  but  on  me  the  sharp  Farewell. 
Happy  art  thou,  O  clad  and  crowned  with  rest ! 
Happy  the  shepherd  (would  that  I  were  he!) 
Whose  early  way  is  step  for  step  with  thee, 
Whose  old  brow  fades  on  thine  immortal  breast. 


33 


Cobwebs 

WHO  would  not  praise  thee,  miracle  of  Frost? 
Some  gesture  overnight,  some  breath  benign, 
And  lo  !  the  tree  's  a  fountain  all  a-shine, 
The  hedge  a  throne  of  unimagined  cost ; 
In  wheel  and  fan  along  a  wall  embossed, 
The  spider's  humble  handiwork  shows  fine 
With  jewels  girdling  every  airy  line  : 
Though  the  small  mason  in  the  cold  be  lost. 

Web  after  web,  a  morning  snare  of  bliss 
Starring  with  beauty  the  whole  neighbourhood, 
May  well  beget  an  envy  clean  and  good. 
When  man  goes  too  into  the  earth-abyss, 
And  God  in  His  altered  garden  walks,  I  would 
My  secret  woof  might  gleam  so  fair  as  this. 


34 


Astrxa 

SINCE  I  avail  no  more,  O  men!  with  you, 
I  will  go  back  unto  the  gods  content ; 
For  they  recall  me,  long  with  earth  inblent, 
Lest  lack  of  faith  divinity  undo. 
I  served  you  truly  while  I  dreamed  you  true, 
And  golden  pains  with  sovereign  pleasure  spent: 
But  now,  farewell!  I  take  my  sad  ascent, 
With  failure  over  all  I  nursed  and  knew. 

Are  ye  unwise,  who  would  not  let  me  love  you  ? 
Or  must  too  bold  desires  be  quieted  ? 
Only  to  ease  you,  never  to  reprove  you, 
I  will  go  back  to  heaven  with  heart  unfed : 
Yet  sisterly  I  turn,  I  bend  above  you, 
To  kiss  (ah,  with  what  sorrow!)  all  my  dead. 


35 


The  Yew-Tree 

As  I  came  homeward 
At  merry  Christmas, 
By  the  old  Church  tower 
Through  the  Churchyard  grass, 

And  saw  there  circled 
With  graves  all  about, 
The  Yew-tree  paternal, 
The  Yew-tree  devout, 

Then  this  hot  life-blood 
Was  hard  to  endure, 
O  Death  !  so  I  loved  thee, 
The  sole  love  sure. 

For  stars  slip  in  heaven, 
They  wander,  they  break ; 
But  under  the  Yew-tree 
Not  one  heartache. 

And  ours,  what  failure 
Renewed  and  avowed  ! 

36 


But  ah,  the  long-buried 
Is  leal,  and  is  proud. 


At  eve,  o'erlooking 
The  smooth  chilly  tide, 
With  age-hidden  meaning 
The  Yew-tree  sighed, 

By  the  square  grey  tower, 
In  the  shortxgrey  grass, 
As  I  came  homeward 
At  merry  Christmas. 


37 


T*en  Colloquies 


I.    THE    SEARCH 

"  WHY  dost  thou  hide  from  these 
Out  along  the  hills  halloaing? 
Why  hast  forbade 
Thy  face,  O  goddess  !  to  thy  votaries  ? " 

"  Unas  king  and  unknowing 
Is  he  whom  I  make  glad. 
Like  Dian  grandly  going 
To  the  sleeping  shepherd-lad. 
Men  that  pursue  learn  not 
To  follow  is  my  lot" 

"  Happiness,  secret  one, 
Heartbeat  of  the  April  weather, 
Where  art  thou  found  ? 
Tell ;  lest  I  err  too,  yonder  in  the  sun." 

"  Call  in  thine  eye  from  ether  ^ 
Thy  feet  from  far  ground ; 
Seek  Honour  in  this  heather •, 
With  austere  purples  wound. 

38 


Serve  her  :  she  will  reveal 
Me,  hound-like  at  thy  heel" 

II.    FACT    AND    THE    MYSTIC 

"  GOOD-MORROW,  Symbol."  —  "  Call  me  not 
'The  name  I  neither  love  nor  merit" 
—  "That  grave  eternal  name  inherit, 
Thine  ever,  though  all  men  forgot." 

"  Mistake  me  not  ;  secure  and  free 
From  rock  to  rock  my  falchion  passes  : 
But  Symbols  trail  through  grey  morasses 
The  tattered  shows  of  faery" 

"  My  Symbol  thou,  of  phantom  blood, 
With  starlight  from  thy  temples  raying; 
Along  thy  floated  body  playing 
Are  withering  wings,  and  wings  in  bud." 


)  thine  eye  with  clay  is  sealed" 
—  "Symbol,  before  the  clay's  denial, 
While  yet  I  had  a  god's  espial, 
I  saw  thee  in  a  solar  field  !  " 

39 


"  Nay  :  I  am  Fact." —  "  Then  lose  thy  praise ; 
And  lest  to-day  no  song  behoove  thee, 
Lest  mine  impeach  thee,  or  reprove  thee, 
Ah,  Symbol,  Symbol !  go  thy  ways/' 

III.    THE    POET'S    CHART 

"WHERE  shall  I  find  my  light?" 

"  'Turn  from  another  s  track : 
Whether  for  gain  or  lack. 
Love  but  thy  natal  right. 
Cease  to  follow  withal, 
though  on  thine  up-led  feet 
Flakes  of  the  phosphor  fall. 
Oracles  overheard 
Are  never  again  for  thee, 
Nor  at  a  magian  s  knee 
Under  the  hemlock  tree, 
Burns  the  illumining  word!' 

"  Whence  shall  I  take  my  law  ?  " 

"  Neither  from  sires  nor  sons, 

Nor  the  delivered  ones, 
40 


Holy,  invoked  with  awe. 
Rather,  dredge  the  divine 
Out  of  thine  own  poor  dust, 
Feebly  to  speak  and  shine. 
Schools  shall  be  as  they  are : 
Be  thou  truer,  and  stray 
Alone,  intent,  and  away. 
In  a  savage  wild  to  obey 
Some  dim  primordial  star." 


IV.    OF    THE    GOLDEN    AGE 

"  RECALL  for  me,  recall 
The  time  more  true  and  ample ; 
The  world  whereon  I  trample, 
How  tortuous  and  small ! 
Behold,  I  tire  of  all. 

"  Once,  gods  in  jewelled  mail 
Through  greenwood  ways  invited; 
There  now  the  moon  is  blighted, 
And  mosses  long  and  pale 
On  lifeless  cedars  trail." 


"  Child)  keep  this  good  unrest  : 
But  give  to  thine  own  story 
Simplicity  with  glory ; 
To  greatness  dispossessed^ 
Dominion  of  thy  breast. 

"  In  abstinence,  in  pride, 
Thou,  who  from  Folly's  boldest 
Thy  sacred  eye  withholdest, 
Another  morn  shah  ride 
At  Agamemnon  s  side." 

V.    ON    TIME'S    THRESHOLD 

"See:  brood :  remember :  this  thy  function  only ; 

Neither  to  have  nor  do  is  meet  for  thee." 
"  Ah,  earth 's  a  palace  where  I  must  go  lonely  ! " 
"  Nay  :  earth 's  a  dungeon  which  thou  passes /, 
free!' 

VI.    WOOD-PIGEONS 

"  I  CANNOT  soar  beside,  but  must  for  ever  suffer 
Blue  air  athrill  with  thee  to  lap  against  my 

breast, 
42 


And  dream  it  is  thy  wing." 

—  "Dear,  sighs  about  thee  hover  : 
Among  the  dewy  leaves  my  longing  is  thy  guest. 
Yet,  lone  and  far  apart,  shall  we  no  joy  discover 
'To  travel  the  same  sky,  and  by  one  sea  to  rest  ? 
Say,  mate  in  all  this  world?  " 

—  "Ah,  mute  forbidden  lover, 
Ah,  song  I  shall  not  hear  ! " 

—  "Ah,  sweet  unbuilded  nest !  " 


VII.    PREDICAMENTS 

"  IF  the  gods  ruin  send?  " — 

"  Make  that  thy  bride  and  friend  " 

"  If  the  gods  cheat  ?  "  —  "  They  say 
The  one  true  word  a/way." 

"  If  for  some  loss  I  pine  ? " 

"  — The  past  is  theirs,  yet  thine." 

"  If  I  sue  not  ?  "  —  «  Vain  cares  ! 
'The  morrow  's  thine,  not  theirs" 

43 


VIII.  THE    CO-ETERNAL 

"  Is  it  thou,  silly  heart, 
Not  prone  on  thy  pallet,  but  grieving  apart?  " 
—  "  Natal  Star,  even  so." 
"  /  miss  thee  to-night,  while  thou  smoulderest 

low.'1 

— "  Live  in  beauty  !  but  I 
For  bloodshed  of  spirit,  here  dwindle  and 
die." 

"  Are  we  two  not  the  same, 

By  law  everlasting  one  mystical  flame? 

Aloft  if  I  burn, 

Every  ray  of  my  light  be  thy  stair  of  return  : 

Up,  up!  to  our  lot 

Where  warfare  and  time  and  the  body  are  not" 

IX.  STERN    APHRODITE 

"  IDLE  is  coy  with  me, 
Goddess  !  for  a  month  I  suffer 
Knowing  not  how  far  I  be : 
Teach  me  softer  arts,  or  rougher, 
Well  to  sail  that  sea." 
44 


Fie :  how  long  could  Love  divine 
Venturing^  abstain  from  answer ', 
Nor  look  landward  for  a  sign! 
Niggard,  take  of  thine  entrancer 
Shipwreck  in  the  brine" 


X.    THE    JUBILEE 

"  Master  of  your  wounded  heart ,  regent  of  your 

pleasure  ! 
We  that  long  defied  your  art,  tamed  Moods  at 

leisure. 
All  with  you,  nor  now  apart,  would  tread  out 

our  measure" 

"  Welcome,  equal  powers  benign,  quit  of  an 
cient  madness  ! 

Dance  with  me  beneath  the  vine,  not  un 
gentle  Sadness ;  t 

Link  your  little  hand  in  mine  soberly,  my 
Gladness." 


45 


Winter  Bough. 


How  tender  and  how  slow,  in  sunset  cheer, 
Far  on  the  hill,  our  quiet  treetops  fade ! 
A  broidery  of  ebon  seaweed,  laid 
Long  in  a  book,  were  scarce  more  fine  and 

clear. 

Frost  and  sad  light  and  windless  atmosphere 
Have  breathed  on  them,  and  of  their  frailties 

made 
Beauty   more   sweet  than   summer's   builded 

shade, 
Whose  green  domes  fallen,  leave  this  wonder 

here. 

O  ye  forgetting  and  outliving  boughs, 
With  not  a  plume,  gay  in  the  joust  before, 
Left  for  the  Archer !  so,  in  evening's  eye, 
So  stilled,  so  lifted,  let  your  lover  die, 
Set  in  the  upper  calm  no  voices  rouse, 
Stript,  meek,  withdrawn,  against  the  heavenly 
door. 


A.D.  MDCCLXXriII-MDCCCXXX 

BETWEEN  the  wet  trees  and  the  sorry  steeple, 
Keep,  Time,  in  dark  Soho,  what   once  was 

Hazlitt, 
Seeker  of  Truth,  and  finder  oft  of  Beauty ; 

Beauty's  a  sinking  light,  ah,  none  too  faithful ; 

But  Truth,  who  leaves  so  here  her  spent  pur 
suer, 

Forgets  not  her  great  pawn  :  herself  shall  claim 
it. 

Therefore  sleep  safe,  thou  dear  and  battling 

spirit, 

Safe  also  on  our  earth,  begetting  ever 
Some  one  love  worth  the  ages  and  the  nations! 

Falleth  no  thing  that  was  to  thee  eternal. 
Sleep  safe  in  dark  Soho :  the  stars  are  shining, 
Titian    and    Wordsworth    live ;    the    People 
marches. 


47 


"The  Vigil-at-Arms 

KEEP  holy  watch  with  silence,  prayer,  and  fasting 
Till  morning  break,  and  every  bugle  play ; 
Unto  the  One  aware  from  everlasting 
Dear  are  the  winners:  thou  art  more  than  they. 

Forth  from  this  peace  on  manhood's  way  thou 

goest, 

Flushed  with  resolve,  and  radiant  in  mail ; 
Blessing  supreme  for  men  unborn  thou  sowest, 
O  knight  elect !  O  soul  ordained  to  fail ! 


A  Friend'' s  Song  for  Simoisius 

THE  breath  of  dew  and  twilight's  grace 

Be  on  the  lonely  battle-place, 

And  to  so  young,  so  kind  a  face, 

The  long  protecting  grasses  cling  ! 

(Alas,  alas, 

That  one  inexorable  thing !) 

In  rocky  hollows  cool  and  deep, 
The  honey-bees  unrifled  sleep  ; 
The  early  moon  from  Ida  steep 
Comes  to  the  empty  wrestling-ring ; 

Upon  the  widowed  wind  recede 
No  echoes  of  the  shepherd's  reed ; 
And  children  without  laughter  lead 
The  war-horse  to  the  watering ; 

With  footstep  separate  and  slow 
The  father  and  the  mother  go, 
Not  now  upon  an  urn  they  know 
To  mingle  tears  for  comforting. 


49 


Thou  stranger  Ajax  Telamon ! 
What  to  the  lovely  hast  thou  done, 
That  nevermore  a  maid  may  run 
With  him  across  the  flowery  Spring? 

The  world  to  me  has  nothing  dear 
Beyond  the  namesake  river  here : 
Oh,  Simois  is  wild  and  clear  ! 
And  to  his  brink  my  heart  I  bring ; 

My  heart,  if  only  this  might  be, 
Would  stay  his  waters  from  the  sea, 
To  cover  Troy,  to  cover  me, 
To  haste  the  hour  of  perishing. 
(Alas,  alas, 
That  one  inexorable  thing!) 


To  an  Ideal 

THAT  I  have  tracked  you  from  afar,  my 
crown  I  call  it  and  my  height : 

All  hail,  O  dear  and  difficult  star !  All  hail, 
O  heart  of  light ! 

No  pleasure  born  of  time  for  me, 

Who  in  you  touch  eternity. 

If  I  have  found  you  where  you  are,  I  win  my 
mortal  fight. 

You  flee  the  plain  :  I  therefore  choose  summit 
and  solitude  for  mine, 

The  high  air  where  I  cannot  lose  our  com 
radeship  divine. 

More  lovely  here,  to  wakened  blood, 

Sparse  leaf  and  hesitating  bud, 

Than  rosaries  in  the  dewy  vales  for  which  the 
dryads  pine. 

Spirit  austere !  lend  aid :  I  walk  along  in 
clement  ridges  too, 

Disowning  toys  of  sense,  to  baulk  my  soul  of 
ends  untrue. 

51 


Because  man's  cry,  by  night  and  day, 
Cried  not  for  God,  I  broke  away. 
On,  at  your  ruthless  pace !  I  '11  stalk,  a  hill 
top  ghost,  with  you. 


In  a  Ruin,  after  a  Thunder 
Storm 

KEEP  of  the  Norman,  old  to  flood  and  cloud  ! 
Thou  dost  reproach  me  with  thy  sunset  look, 
That  in  our  common  menace  I  forsook 
Hope,  the  last  fear,  and  stood  impartial  proud : 
Almost,  almost,  while  ether  spake  aloud, 
Death   from    the   smoking   stones   my   spirit 

shook 

Into  thy  hollow  as  leaves  into  a  brook, 
No    more    than    they   by   heaven's    assassins 

cowed. 

But  now  thy  thousand-scarred  steep  is  flecked 
With  the  calm  kisses  of  the  light  delayed, 
Breathe  on  me  better  valour :  to  subject 
My  soul  to  greed  of  life,  and  grow  afraid 
Lest  ere  her  fight's  full  term,  the  Architect 
See  downfall  of  the  stronghold  that  He  made. 


53 


Eeati  Mortui 

BLESSED  the  Dead  in  Spirit,  our  brave  dead 

Not  passed,  but  perfected : 

Who  tower  up  to  mystical  full  bloom 

From  self,  as  from  a  known  alchemic  tomb ; 

Who  out  of  wrong 

Run  forth  with  laughter  and  a  broken  thong; 

Who  win  from  pain  their  strange  and  flawless 

grant 

Of  peace  anticipant ; 

Who  cerements  lately  wore  of  sin,  but  now, 
Unbound  from  foot  to  brow, 
Gleam  in  and  out  of  cities,  beautiful 
As  sun-born  colours  of  a  forest  pool 
Where  Autumn  sees 
The   splash   of  walnuts    from    her    thinning 

trees. 

Though  wondered-at  of  some,  yea,  feared  al 
most 

As  any  chantry  ghost, 
How  sight  of  these,  in  hermitage  or  mart, 
Makes  glad  a  wistful  heart ! 
54 


For  life's  apologetics  read  most  true 

In  spirits  risen  anew, 

Like  larks  in  air 

To  whom  flat  earth  is  all  a  heavenward  stair, 

And  who  from  yonder  parapet 

Scorn  every  mortal  fret, 

And  rain  their  sweet  bewildering  staves 

Upon  our  furrow  of  fresh-delved  graves. 

If  thus  to  have  trod  and  left  the  wormy  way 

Makes  men  so  wondrous  gay, 

So  stripped  and  free  and  potently  alive, 

Who  would  not  his  infirmity  survive, 

And  bathe  in  victory,  and  come  to  be 

As  blithe  as  ye, 

Saints  of  the  ended  wars  ?  Ah,  greeting  give ; 

Turn  not  away,  too  fugitive : 

But   hastening  towards  us,   hallow  the  foul 

street, 

And  sit  with  us  at  meat, 
And  of  your  courtesy,  on  us  unwise 
Fix  oft  those  purer  eyes, 
Till  in  ourselves  who  love  them  dwell 
The  same  sure  light  ineffable: 

55 


Till  they  who  walk  with  us  in  after  years 
Forgetting  time  and  tears 
(As  we  with  you),  shall  sing  all  day  instead : 
"  How  blessed  are  the  Dead  !  " 


"Two  Irish  Peasant  Songs 

I.    IN    LEINSTER 

I  TRY  to  knead  and  spin,  but  my  life  is  low 

the  while. 

Oh,  I  long  to  be  alone,  and  walk  abroad  a  mile ; 
Yet  if  I  walk  alone,  and  think  of  naught  at  all, 
Why  from  me  that 's  young  should  the  wild 

tears  fall? 

The  shower-sodden  earth,  the  earth-coloured 

streams, 
They  breathe  on  me  awake,  and  moan  to  me 

in  dreams, 

And  yonder  ivy  fondling  the  broke  castle-wall, 
It  pulls  upon  my  heart  till  the  wild  tears  fall. 

The  cabin-door  looks  down  a  furze-lighted  hill, 
And  far  as  Leighlin  Cross  the  fields  are  green 

and  still ; 
But  once   I   hear  the   blackbird   in   Leighlin 

hedges  call, 
The  foolishness  is  on  me,  and  the  wild  tears 

fall! 

57 


II.    IN    ULSTER 

'T  is  the  time  o'  the  year,  if  the  quicken-bough 

be  staunch, 
The  green  like  a  breaker  rolls  steady  up  the 

branch, 
And  surges  in  the  spaces,  and  floods  the  trunk, 

and  heaves 
In  jets  of  angry  spray  that  is  the  under-white 

of  leaves ; 
And  from  the  thorn  in  companies  the  foamy 

petals  fall, 
And  waves  of  jolly  ivy  wink  along  a  windy 

wall. 

'T  is  the  time  o'  the  year  the  marsh  is  full  of 

sound, 
And  good  and  glorious  it  is  to  smell  the  living 

ground. 
The  crimson-headed  catkin  shakes  above  the 

pasture-bars, 
The  daisy  takes  the  middle  field  and  spangles 

it  with  stars, 


And  down  the  hedgerow  to  the  lane  the  prim 
roses  do  crowd, 

All  coloured  like  the  twilight  moon,  and 
spreading  like  a  cloud  ! 

'T  is  the  time  o'  the  year,  in  early  light  and 

glad, 

The  lark  has  a  music  to  drive  a  lover  mad ; 
The  rocks  are  dripping  nightly,  the  breathed 

damps  arise, 
Deliciously  the   freshets   cool   the  grayling's 

golden  eyes, 
And  lying  in  a  row  against  the  chilly  north, 

the  sheep 
Inclose  a  place  without  a  wind  for  tender  lambs 

to  sleep. 

'T  is  the  time  o'  the  year  I  turn   upon  the 

height 
To  watch  from  my  harrow  the  dance  of  going 

light ; 
And  if  before  the  sun  be  hid,  come  slowly  up 

the  vale 


59 


Honora  with  her  dimpled  throat,  Honora  with 

her  pail, 
Hey,  but  there  's  many  a  March  for  me,  and 

many  and  many  a  lass  !  — 
I  fall. to  work  and  song  again,  and  let  Honora 

pass. 


60 


The  Japanese  Anemone 

ALL  summer  the  breath  of  the  roses  around 
Exhales  with  a  delicate  passionate  sound  ; 
And  when  from  a  trellis,  in  holiday  places, 
They  croon  and  cajole,  with  their  slumberous 

faces, 
A  lad  in  the  lane  must  slacken  his  paces. 

Fragrance  of  these  is  a  voice  from  a  bower : 
But  low  by  the  wall  is  my  odourless  flower, 
So  pure,  so  controlled,  not  a  fume  is  above 

her, 
That   poet   or  bee    should   delay  there  and 

hover ; 
For  she  is  a  silence,  and  therefore  I  love  her. 

And  never  a  mortal  by  morn  or  midnight 
Is  called  to  her  hid  little  house  of  delight ; 
And  she  keeps  from  the  wind,  on  his  pillages 

olden, 

Upon  a  true  stalk  in  rough  weather  upholden, 
Her  winter-white  gourd  with  the  hollow  moon- 
golden. 

61 


While  ardours  of  roses  contend  and  increase, 
Methinks  she  has  found  how  noble  is  peace. 
Like  a  spirit  besought  from  the  world  to  dis 
sever, 
Not  absent  to  men,  though  resumed  by  the 

Giver, 
And  dead  long  ago,  being  lovely  for  ever. 


62 


Orisons 

ORANGE  and  olive  and  glossed  bay-tree, 
And  air  of  the  evening  out  at  sea, 
And  out  at  sea  on  the  steep  warm  stone, 
A  little  bare  diver  poising  alone. 

Flushed  from  the  cool  of  Sicilian  waves, 
Flushed  as  the  coral  in  clean  sea-caves, 
"  I  am!"  he  cries  to  his  glorying  heart, 
And  unto  he  knows  not  what:  "THOU  art!'1 

He  leaps,  he  shines,  he  sinks  and  is  gone : 
He  will  climb  to  the  golden  ledge  anon. 
Perfecter  rite  can  none  employ, 
When  the  god  of  the  isle  is  good  to  a  boy. 


The  Inner  Fate :  a  Chorus 

NOT  weak  with  eld 

The  stars  beheld 

Proud  Persia  coming  to  her  doom  ; 

Not  battle-broke,  nor  tempest-tossed, 

The  long  luxurious  galleys  lost 

Their  souls  at  Actium. 

Not  outer  arts 

Of  hostile  hearts 

Seduced  the  arm  of  France  to  be 

The  wreckage  of  his  wars  at  last, 

The  orphan  of  the  kingdoms,  cast 

Upon  the  mothering  sea. 

Man  evermore  doth  work  his  will, 
And  evermore  the  gods  are  still, 
Applauding  him  alone  who  stands 
Too  just  for  Heaven-accusing  groans, 
But  in  his  house  of  havoc  owns 
The  doing  of  his  hands  : 
Transgressor,  yet  divinely  taught 
To  suffer  all,  blaspheming  naught, 


When  fair-begun  must  foul  conclude: 
Himself  progenitor  of  death 
Who  breeds,  within,  the  only  breath 
Can  kill  beatitude. 


Acknowledgment 


SINCE  first  I  knew  it  our  divine  employ 
To  beat  beyond  the  reach  of  soiling  care, 
As  at  Philippi,  well  of  doom  aware, 
The  Praetor  called  and  heard  the  singing-boy; 
Since  first  my  soul  so  jealous  was  of  joy, 
That  any  facile  linden-bloom  in  air, 
Or  fall  of  water  on  a  wildwood  stair, 
Annulled  for  her  all  dragging  dull  annoy  ; 
Though   word  of  thanks  I   lacked,  though, 

dumb,  I  smiled 

Long,  long,  at  such  august  amends  up-piled, 
Let  this  the  debt  redeem:  that  when  Ye  drop 
Death's  aloe-leaf  within  my  honeyed  cup, 
On  thoughtful  knee  your  much-beholden  child, 
Immortals!  unto  You  will  drink  it  up. 


66 


By  the  Trundle-bed 


LOST  love,  be  never  beyond  Love's  calling ! 
For  this  I  claim  of  you,  strong  heart,  sweet 
As  fontal  water  in  Arden  falling, 
As  first-mown  hay  in  the  April  heat : 

To  tend  from  heaven,  to  rear,  to  harden, 
And  bring  to  bloom  in  the  outer  cold, 
Our  daffodil  bud  of  a  walled-in  garden, 
Our  son  that  is  like  you,  and  six  years  old; 

And  lest  his  worth  be  the  worth  unreal, 
To  ward  him  not  from  the  mortal  blast, 
But  suffer  your  own,  through  a  long  ordeal,, 
Verily  like  you  to  be  at  the  last, 

And  hear  men  murmur,  if  so  he  merit 
In  your  old  place  with  your  look  to  arise  : 
The  sign  of  a  saved  soul  who  can  inherit? — 
You  have  earned,  O  King!  those  beautiful 
eyes." 


Arboricide 

A  WORD  of  grief  to  me  erewhile: 
We  have  cut  the  oak  down,  in  our  isle, 

And  I  said :  "  Ye  have  bereaven 
The  song-thrush  and  the  bee, 
And  the  fisher-boy  at  sea 
Of  his  sea-mark  in  the  even ; 
And  gourds  of  cooling  shade,  to  .lie 
Within  the  sickle's  sound ; 
And  the  old  sheep-dog's  loyal  eye 
Of  sleep  on  duty's  ground; 
And  poets  of  their  tent 
And  quiet  tenement. 
Ah,  impious !  who  so  paid 
Such  fatherhood,  and  made 
Of  murmurous    immbrtality   a  cargo    and   a 
trade." 

For  the  hewn  oak  a  century  fair, 
A  wound  in  earth,  an  ache  in  air. 

And  I  said:  "No  pillared  height 

With  a  summer  dais  over, 

68 


Where  a  dryad  fled  her  lover 
Through  the  long  arcade  of  light; 
Nor  'neath  Arcturus  rolleth  more, 
Since  the  loud  leaves  are  gone, 
Between  the  shorn  cliff  and  the  shore, 
Pan's  organ  antiphon. 
Some  nameless  envy  fed 
This  blow  at  grandeur's  head : 
Some  breathed  reproach,  o'erdue, 
Degenerate  men,  ye  drew ! 
Hence,   for   his   too   plain   heavenliness,   our 
Socrates  ye  slew." 


The  Cherry  Bough 

IN  a  new  poet's  and  a  new  friend's  honour, 

Forth  from  the  scorned  town  and  her  gold- 
getting, 

Come  men  with  lutes  and  bowls,  and  find  a 
welcome 

Here  in  my  garden, 

Find  bowers  and  deep  shade  and  windy  grasses, 

And  by  the  south  wall,  wet  and  forward-jut 
ting, 

One  early  branch  fire-tipped  with  Roman 
cherries. 

Oh,  naught  is  absent, 

Oh,  naught  but  you,  kind  head  that  far  in 

prison 

Sunk  on  a  weary  arm,  feels  no  god's  pity 
Stroking  and  sighing  where  the  kingly  laurels 
Were  once  so  plenty ; 

Nor  dreams,  from    revel    and    strange    faces 

turning, 
70 


How  on  the  strength  of  my  fair  tree  that  knew 

you 

I  lean  to-day,  when  most  my  heart  is  laden 
With  your  rich  verses  ! 

Since,  long  ago,  in  other  gentler  weather, 
Ere  wrath  and  exile  were,  you  lay  beneath  it 
(Your  symbol  then,  your  innocent  wild  brother 
Glad  with  your  gladness), 

What  has  befallen  in  the  world  of  wonder, 
That  still  it  puts  forth  bubbles  of  sweet  colour, 
And  you,  and  you  that  fed   our  eyes  with 

beauty, 
Are  sapped  and  rotten  ? 

Alas  !  When  my  young  guests  have  done  with 

singing, 

I  break  it,  leaf  and  fruit,  my  garden's  glory, 
And  hold  it  high  among  them,  and  say  after : 
"  O  my  poor  Ovid, 

"  Years    pass,  and    loves    pass    too ;  and  yet 
remember 

71 


For  the  clear  time  when  we  were  boys  together, 
These  tears  at  home  are  shed;  and  with  you 

also 
Your  bough  is  dying." 


72 


THE 

UNIVERSITY 


The  Wild  Ride 


I  HEAR   in   my  heart,  I  hear  in   its   ominous    l 

pulses 
All  day,  on  the  road,  the  hoofs  of  invisible 

horses, 
All  night,  from  their  stalls,  the  importunate 

pawing  and  neighing. 

Let  cowards  and  laggards  fall  back!/but  alert 

to  the  saddle 
Weather-worn  and  abreast,  go  men  of  our  gal-        ^^L> 

loping  legion,) 
With  a  stirrup-cup  each  to  the  lily,  of  women 

that  loves  him. 


trail  is  through  dolour  and  dread,  over 
^  crags  and  morasses  ;J) 

There  are  shapes  by  the  way,  there  are  things       ^^^ 
{r  that  appal  or  entice  us : 

What  oddsP^We  are  Knights  of  the  Grail,  we 
are  vowed  to  the  riding.^ 

Thought's  self  is  a  vanishing  wing,  and  joy  is 
a  cobweb, 

73 


And  friendship  a  flower  in  the  dust,  and  glory 

a  sunbeam : 
Not  here  is  our  prize,  nor,  alas.!  after  these 

our  pursuing. 

A  dipping  of  plumes,  a  tear,  a  shake  of  the 

A  passing  salute  to  this  world  and  her  pitiful 
t   I  beauty: 

i\    \  (We  hurry  with  never  a  word  in  the  track  of  our 
fathers.} 


(I  hear  in  my  heart,  I  hear  in  its  ominous  pulses 
All  day,  on  the  road,  the  hoofs  of  invisible 

h°rses>  jLut, ' 

All  night,  from  their  stalls,  the  importunate 

pawing  and  neighing.) 

(We  spur  to  a  land  of  no  name,  out-racing  the 

storm-wind  $ 

.  AVe  leap  to  the  infinite  dark  like  sparks  from 
'\  the  anvil.}    (  %*u  *  ****  4^y^  ^^ 

\Thou  leadest,  O  God!  All's  well  with  Thy 
f  *A    \  troopers  that  follow* 

74 


Bedesfolk 


WHO  is  good  enough  to  be 
Near  the  never-stained  sea? 

Ah,  not  I, 

Who  thereby 

Only  sigh : 

Pray  for  me. 

Standing  underneath  some  free 
Innocent  magnanimous  tree, 

To  be  true, 

There  anew 

Must  I  sue: 

Pray  for  me. 

Ere  I  pass  on  hilly  lea 
Fellow-lives  of  glad  degree, 

Without  shame, 

Name  by  name 

These  I  claim : 

Pray  for  me. 

Fail  not,  then,  thou  kingly  sea ! 
Aid  the  needy,  sister  tree  ! 

75 


March  herds, 
Ye  have  words ! 
April  birds, 
Pray  for  me! 


In  a  City  Street 


THOUGH  sea  and  mount  have  beauty  and  this 
but  what  it  can, 

Thrice  fairer  than  their  life  the  life  here  bat 
tling  in  the  van, 

The  tragic  gleam,  the  mist  and  grime, 

The  dread  endearing  stain  of  time, 

The  sullied  heart  of  man. 

Mine  is  the  clotted  sunshine,  a  bubble  in  the 

sky, 
That  where  it  dare  not  enter  steals  in  shrouded 

passion  by; 

And  mine  the  saffron  river-sails, 
And  every  plane-tree  that  avails 
To  rest  an  urban  eye ; 

The  bells,  the   dripping   gable,  the  tavern's 

corner  glare ; 
The  cab  in  firefly  darting;   the  barrel-organ 

air, 

While  one  by  one,  or  two  by  two 
The  hatless  babes  are  waltzing  through 
The  gutters  of  the  Square. 

77 


Not  on  Thessalian  headlands  of  song  and  old 

desire 
My  spirit  chose  her  pleasure-house,  but  in  the 

London  mire : 

Long,  long  alone  she  loves  to  pace, 
And  find  a  music  in  this  place 
As  in  a  minster  choir. 

O  names  of  awe  and  rapture !  O  deeds  of  leg- 

endry  ! 
Still  is  it  most  of  joy  within  your  altered  pale 

to  be, 

Whose  very  ills  I  fain  would  slake 
Mine  angels  are,  and  help  to  make 
In  Hell  a  Heaven  for  me. 


Florentin 

A.  D.  MDCCCXC 

HEART  all  full  of  heavenward  haste,  too  like 

the  bubble  bright 
On  wild  little  waters  floating  half  of  an  April 

night, 
Fled  from  the  ear  in  music,  fled  from  the  eye 

in  light, 

Dear  and  stainless  heart  of  a  boy  !  No  sweeter 

thing  can  be 
Drawn  to  the  quiet  centre  of  God  who  is  our 

sea: 
Whither,  through   troubled  valleys,  we  also 

follow  thee. 


79 


A  Song  of  the  Lilac 


ABOVE  the  wall  that 's  broken, 

And  from  the  coppice  thinned, 

So  sacred  and  so  sweet 

The  lilac  in  the  wind  ! 

For  when  by  night  the  May  wind  blows 

The  lilac-blooms  apart, 

The  memory  of  his  first  love 

Is  shaken  on  his  heart. 

In  tears  it  long  was  buried, 

And  trances  wrapt  it  round ; 

Oh,  how  they  wake  it  now, 

The  fragrance  and  the  sound ! 

For  when  by  night  the  May  wind  blows 

The  lilac-blooms  apart, 

The  memory  of  his  first  love 

Is  shaken  on  his  heart. 


80 


Monochrome 

SHUT  fast  again  in  Beauty's  sheath 
Where  ancient  forms  renew, 
The  round  world  seems  above,  beneath, 
One  wash  of  faintest  blue, 

And  air  and  tide  so  stilly  sweet 
In  nameless  union  lie, 
The  little  far-off  fishing  fleet 
Goes  drifting  up  the  sky. 

Secure  of  neither  misted  coast 
Nor  ocean  undefined, 
Our  flagging  sail  is  like  the  ghost 
Of  one  that  served  mankind, 

Who  in  the  void,  as  we  upon 
This  melancholy  sea, 
Finds  labour  and  allegiance  done, 
And  Self  begin  to  be. 


81 


Saint  Francis  Rndeth  his  Ser 
mon 

"AND  now,  my  clerks  who  go  in  fur  or  feather 
Or  brighter  scales,  I  bless  you  all.   Be  true 
To  your  true  Lover  and  Avenger,  whether 
By  land  or  sea  ye  die  the  death  undue. 
Then  proffer  man  your  pardon ;  and  together 
Track  him  to  Heaven,  and  see  his  heart  made 
new. 

"  From  long  ago  one  hope  hath  in  me  thriven, 
Your  hope,  mysterious  as  the  scented  May : 
Not  to  Himself  your  titles  God  hath  given 
In  vain,  nor  only  for  our  mortal  day. 
O  doves  !  how  from  The  Dove  shall  ye  be 

driven  ? 
O  darling  lambs  !  ye  with  The  Lamb  shall 

play." 


An  E  stray 


WELL  we  know,  not  ever  here  is  a  footing  for 

thy  dream: 
Thou  art  sick  for  horse  and  spear  beside  an 

Asian  stream, 

For  the  hearth-smoke  in  the  wild,  for  the  goat 
herd's  stave, 
For  a  beauty  far  exiled,  a  belief  within  its  grave. 

While  another  sky  and  ground  orb  thy  strange 

remembering, 
And  no  world  of  mortal  bound  is  the  master 

of  thy  wing, 

Canst  thou  yet  thy  fate  forgive,  that  the  god 
head  in  thy  breast 

Has  this  life  at  least  to  live  as  a  force  in 
rhythmic  rest, 

As  a  seed  that  bides  the  hour  of  obscureness 

and  decay, 
Being  troth  of  flower  to  flower  down  the  long 

dynastic  day  ? 

83 


Child  whom  elder  airs  enfold,  who  hast  great 
ness  to  maintain 

Where  heroic  hap  of  old  may  return  and  shine 
again, 

As  too  oft  across  thy  heart  flits  the  too  fa 
miliar  light, 

How  alarms  of  love  upstart  at  the  token  quick 
and  slight ! 

Lest  captivity  be  o'er,  lest  thou  glide  away, 

and  so 
From  our  tents  of  Nevermore  strike  the  trail 

of  Long  Ago. 


Friendship  Broken 


WE  chose  the  faint  chill  morning,  friend  and 

friend. 

Pacing  the  twilight  out  beneath  an  oak, 
Soul  calling  soul  to  judgment;  and  we  spoke 
Strange  things  and  deep  as  any  poet  penned, 
Such  truth  as  never  truth  again  can  mend, 
Whatever  art  we  use,  what  gods  invoke; 
It  was  not  wrath,  it  made  nor  strife  nor  smoke : 
Be  what  it  may,  it  had  a  solemn  end. 

Farewell,  in  peace.  We  of  the  selfsame  throne 
Are  foeman  vassals ;  pale  astrologers, 
Each  a  wise  skeptic  of  the  other's  star. 
Silently,  as  we  went  our  ways  alone, 
The    steadfast    sun,  whom    no    poor    prayer 

deters, 
Drew  high  between  us  his  majestic  bar. 


II 

MINE  was  the  mood  that  shows  the  dearest 

face 

Through  a  long  avenue,  and  voices  kind 
Idle,  and  indeterminate,  and  blind 
As  rumours  from  a  very  distant  place ; 
Yet,  even  so,  it  gathered  the  first  chase 
Of  the  first  swallows  where  the  lane  's  inclined, 
An  ebb  of  wavy  wings  to  serve  my  mind 
For  round  Spring's  vision.    Ah,  some  equal 

grace 

(The  calm  sense  of  seen  beauty  without  sight) 
Befell  thee,  honourable  heart !  no  less 
In  patient  stupor  walking  from  the  dawn  ; 
Albeit  thou  too  wert  loser  of  life's  light, 
Like  fallen  Adam  in  the  wilderness, 
Aware  of  naught  but  of  the  thing  withdrawn. 


86 


A  Talisman 

TAKE  Temperance  to  thy  breast. 

While  yet  is  the  hour  of  choosing, 

As  arbitress  exquisite 

Of  all  that  shall  thee  betide  ; 

For  better  than  fortune's  best 

Is  mastery  in  the  using, 

And  sweeter  than  any  thing  sweet 

The  art  to  lay  it  aside ! 


Heathenesse 

No  round  boy-satyr,  racing  from  the  mere, 
Shakes  on  the  mountain  lawn  his  dripping  head 
This  many  a  May,  your  sister  being  dead, 
Ye  Christian  folk  !  your  sister  great  and  dear. 
To  breathe  her  name,  to  think  how  sad-sincere 
Was  all   her    searching,    straying,    dreaming, 

dread, 

How  of  her  natural  night  was  Plato  bred 
(A  star  to  keep  the  ways  of  honour  clear), 

Who  will  not  sigh  for  her?  who  can  forget 
Not  only  unto  camped  Israel, 
Nor  martyr-maids  that  as  a  bridegroom  met 
The  Roman  lion's  roar,  salvation  fell  ? 
To  Him  be  most  of  praise  that  He  is  yet 
Your  God  through  gods  not  inaccessible. 


88 


For  Izaak  Walton 

CAN  trout  allure  the  rod  of  yore 
In  Itchen  stream  to  dip? 
Or  lover  of  her  banks  restore 
That  sweet  Socratic  lip  ? 
Old  fishing  and  wishing 
Are  over  many  a  year. 

Oh,  hush  thee,  Oh,  hush  thee !  heart  innocent 
and  dear. 

Again  the  foamy  shallows  fill, 
The  quiet  clouds  amass, 
And  soft  as  bees  by  Catherine  Hill 
At  dawn  the  anglers  pass, 
And  follow  the  hollow, 
In  boughs  to  disappear. 

Oh,  hush  thee,  Oh,  hush  thee!  heart  innocent 
and  dear. 

Nay,  rise  not  now,  nor  with  them  take 
One  amber-freckled  fool ! 
Thy  sons  to-day  bring  each  an  ache 
For  ancient  arts  to  cool. 


But,  father,  lie  rather 
Unhurt  and  idle  near; 

Oh,  hush  thee,  Oh,  hush  thee!  heart  innocent 
and  dear. 

While  thought  of  thee  to  men  is  yet 
A  sylvan  playfellow, 
Ne'er  by  thy  marble  they  forget 
In  pious  cheer  to  go. 
As  air  falls,  the  prayer  falls 
O'er  kingly  Winchester: 
Oh,  hush  thee,  Oh,  hush  thee !  heart  innocent 
and  dear. 


90 


Fifteen  Epitaph. 


I  LAID  the  strewings,  darling,  on  thine  urn ; 
I  lowered  the  torch,  I  poured  the  cup  to  Dis. 
Now  hushaby,  my  little  child,  and  learn 
Long  sleep  how  good  it  is. 

In  vain  thy  mother  prays,  wayfaring  hence, 
Peace  to  her  heart,  where  only  heartaches  dwell ; 
But  thou  more  blest,  O  mild  intelligence  ! 
Forget  her,  and  Farewell. 


II 

GENTLE  Grecian  passing  by, 
Father  of  thy  peace  am  I : 
Wouldst  thou  now,  in  memory, 
Give  a  soldier's  flower  to  me, 
Choose  the  standard  named  of  yore 
Beautiful  Worth-dying-for, 
That  shall  wither  not,  but  wave 
All  the  year  above  my  grave. 


Ill 

LIGHT  thou  hast  of  the  moon, 
Shade  of  the  dammar-pine, 
Here  on  thy  hillside  bed ; 
Fair  befall  thee,  O  fair 
Lily  of  womanhood, 
Padent  long,  and  at  last 
Here  on  thy  hillside  bed, 
Happier:  ah,  Blaesilla  ! 


IV 

ME,  deep-tressed  meadows,  take  to  your  loyal 

keeping, 
Hard  by  the  swish  of  sickles  ever  in  Aulon 

sleeping, 
Philophron,  old  and  tired,  and  glad  to  be  done 

with  reaping ! 


.  v 

UPON  thy  level  tomb,  till  windy  winter  morn, 

The  fallen  leaves  delay; 

92 


But  plain  and  pure  their  trace  is,  when  them 
selves  are  torn 
From  delicate  frost  away. 

As  here  to  transient  frost  the  absent  leaf  is,  such 
Thou  wert  and  art  to  me: 
So  on  my  passing  life  is  thy  long-passed  touch, 
O  dear  Alcithoe ! 


VI 

HAIL,  and  be  of  comfort,  thou  pious  Xeno, 
Late  the  urn  of  many  a  kinsman  wreathing; 
On  thine  own  shall  even  the  stranger  offer 
Plentiful  myrtle. 

VII 

HERE  lies  one  in  the  earth  who  scarce  of  the 

earth  was  moulded, 

Wise  ^Lthalides'  son,  himself  no  lover  of  study, 
Cnopus,  asleep,  indoors  :  the  young  invincible 

runner. 
They  from  the  cliff  footpath  that  see  on  the 

grave  we  made  him, 

93 


Tameless,  slant  in  the   wind,  the  bare  and 

beautiful  iris, 
Stop  short,  full  of  delight,  and  cry  out :  "  See, 

it  is  Cnopus 
Runs,  with  white  throat  forward,  over  the  sands 

to  Chalcis !  " 

VIII 

ERE  the  Ferryman  from  the  coast  of  spirits 
Turn  the  diligent  oar  that  brought  thee  thither, 
Soul,  remember:  and  leave  a  kiss  upon  it 
For  thy  desolate  father,  for  thy  sister, 
Whichsoever  be  first  to  cross  hereafter. 

IX 

JAFFA  ended,  Cos  begun 
Thee,  Aristeus.  Thou  wert  one 
Fit  to  trample  out  the  sun: 
Who  shall  think  thine  ardours  are 
But  a  cinder  in  ajar? 

x 

Two  white  heads  the  grasses  cover : 
Dorcas,  and  her  lifelong  lover. 

94 


While  they  graced  their  country  closes 
Simply  as  the  brooks  and  roses, 
Where  was  lot  so  poor,  so  trodden, 
But  they  cheered  it  of  a  sudden  ? 
Fifty  years  at  home  together, 
Hand  in  hand,  they  went  elsewhither, 
Then  first  leaving  hearts  behind 
Comfortless.  Be  thou  as  kind. 

As  wind  that  wasteth  the  unmarried  rose, 
And  mars  the  golden  breakers  in  the  bay, 
Hurtful  and  sweet  from  heaven  for  ever  blows 
Sad  thought  that  roughens  all  our  quiet  day  ; 

And  elder  poets  envy,  while  they  weep, 
Ion,  whom  first  the  gods  to  covert  brought, 
Here  under  inland  olives  laid  asleep, 
Most  wise,  most  happy,   having  done   with 
thought. 

XII 


Cows  in  the  narrowing  August  marshes, 
Cows  in  a  stretch  of  water 


95 


Motionless, 

Neck  on  neck  overlapped  and  drooping ; 

These  in  their  troubled  and  dumb  communion, 

Thou  on  the  steep  bank  yonder, 

Pastora ! 

No  more  ever  to  lead  and  love  them, 

No  more  ever.  Thine  innocent  mourners 

Pass  thy  tree  in  the  evening 

Heavily, 

Hearing  another  herd-girl  calling. 

XIII 

Go  you  by  with  gentle  tread. 
This  was  Paula,  who  is  dead : 
Dear  grey  eyes  that  had  a  look 
Like  some  rock-o'ershadowed  brook, 
Voice  upon  the  ear  to  cling 
Sweeter  than  the  cithern  string. 
With  that  spirit  shy  and  fair 
Quietly  and  unaware 
Climbing  past  the  starry  van, 
Went,  for  triple  talisman, 


They  to  whom  the  heavens  must  ope: 
Candour,  Chastity,  and  Hope. 

\  xiv 

TAKE  from  an  urn  my  vow  and  salutation 
Unto  the  land  I  never  now  shall  see : 
Laid  here  exiled,  my  heart  in  desolation 
Frets  like  a  child  against  her  breast  to  be. 

Far  from  the  sky,  a  rose  that  opes  at  even 
(One  liquid  star  for  dewdrop  on  the  rose), 
Far  from  the  shower  that  nesting  low  in  heaven 
Thrice  in  an  hour  light-winged  comes  and  goes, 

Far  from  my  lost  and  blessed  and  beloved 
Nightfall  of  June  beside  the  Rhodian  wave, 
Mine  is  the  pain  another  isle  to  covet, 
Though  all  in  vain,  for  gardener  of  my  grave. 

xv 

PRAISE  thou  the  Mighty  Mother  for  what  is 

wrought,  not  me, 
A  nameless  nothing-caring  head  asleep  against 

her  knee- 

97 


Deo  Optimo  Maximo 

ALL  else  for  use,  One  only  for  desire ; 
Thanksgiving   for  the  good,   but  thirst   for 

Thee: 

Up  from  the  best,  whereof  no  man  need  tire, 
Impel  Thou  me. 

* 

Delight  is  menace  if  Thou  brood  not  by, 
Power  a  quicksand,  Fame  a  gathering  jeer. 
Oft  as  the  morn  (though  none  of  earth  deny 
These  three  are  dear), 

Wash  me  of  them,  that  I  may  be  renewed, 
And  wander  free  amid  my  freeborn  joys : 
Oh,  close  my  hand  upon  Beatitude  ! 
Not  on  her  toys. 


Charista  Musing 


MOVELESS,  on  the  marge  of  a  sunny  cornfield, 
Rapt  in  sudden  revery  while  thou  standest, 
Like  the  sheaves,  in  beautiful  Doric  yellow 
Clad  to  the  ankle, 

Oft  to  thee  with  delicate  hasty  footstep 
So  I  steal,  and  suffer  because  I  find  thee 
Inly  flown,  and  only  a  fallen  feather 
Left  of  my  darling. 

Give  me  back  thy  wakening  breath,  thy  ringlets 
Fragrant  as  the  vine  of  the  bean  in  blossom, 
And  those  eyes  of  violet  dusk  and  daylight 
Under  sea-water, 

Eyes  too  far  away,  and  too  full  of  longing ! 
Yes  :  and  go  not  heavenward  where  I  lose  thee, 
Go  not,  go  not  whither  I  cannot  follow, 
Being  but  earthly. 

Willing  swallow  poised  upon  my  finger. 
Little  wild-wing  ever  from  me  escaping, 
For  the  care  thou  art  to  me,  I  thy  lover 
Love  thee,  and  fear  thee. 

99 


The  Still  of  theYear 

UP  from  the  willow-root 

Subduing  agonies  leap  ; 

The  field-mouse  and  the  purple  moth 

Turn  over  amid  their  sleep  ; 

The  icicled  rocks  aloft 

Burn  amber  and  blue  alway, 

And  trickling  and  tinkling 

The  snows  of  the  drift  decay. 

Oh,  mine  is  the  head  must  hang 

And  share  the  immortal  pang  ! 

Winter  or  spring  is  fair ; 

Thaw's  hard  to  bear. 

Heigho  !  my  heart's  sick. 

Sweet  is  cherry-time,  sweet 
A  shower,  a  bobolink, 
And  trillium,  fain  far  under 
Her  cloistering  leaf  to  shrink ; 
But  here  in  the  vast,  unborn, 
Is  the  bitterest  place  to  be, 
Till  striving  and  longing 
Shall  quicken  the  earth  and  me. 
100 


What  change  inscrutable 
Is  nigh  us,  we  know  not  well ; 
Gone  is  the  strength  to  sigh 
Either  to  live  or  die. 
Heigho!  my  heart's  sick. 


101 


A  Footnote  to  a  Famous  Lyric 

TRUE  love's  own  talisman,  which  here 
Shakespeare  and  Sidney  failed  to  teach, 
A  steel-and-velvet  Cavalier 
Gave  to  our  Saxon  speech  : 

Chief  miracle  of  theme  and  touch 
That  all  must  envy  and  adore  : 
/  could  not  love  thee>  dear^  so  much, 
Loved  I  not  Honour  more. 

No  critic  born  since  Charles  was  King 
But  sighed  in  smiling,  as  he  read : 
"  Here  's  theft  supreme  of  everything 
A  poet  might  have  said !  " 

Young  knight  and  wit  and  beau,  who  won 
Mid  war's  upheaval,  ladies'  praise, 
Was  't  well  of  you,  ere  you  had  done, 
To  blight  our  modern  bays  ? 

Oh,  yet  to  you,  whose  random  hand 
Struck  from  the  dark  whole  gems  like  these 

IO2 


(Archaic  beauty,  never  planned 
Nor  reared  by  wan  degrees, 

Which  leaves  an  artist  poor,  and  Art 
An  earldom  richer  all  her  years) ; 
To  you,  dead  on  your  shield  apart, 
Be  "  Ave!"  passed  in  tears. 

'T  was  virtue's  breath  inflamed  your  lyre 
Heroic  from  the  heart  it  ran  ; 
Nor  for  the  shedding  of  such  fire 
Lived,  since,  a  manlier  man. 

And  till  your  strophe  sweet  and  bold 
So  lovely  aye,  so  lonely  long, 
Love's  self  outdo,  dear  Lovelace  !  hold 
The  parapets  of  Song. 


103 


T.  IF.  P. 

A.  D.  MDCCCXIX-MDCCCXCII 

FRIEND  who  hast  gone,  and  dost  enrich  to-day 
New  England  brightly  building  far  away, 
And  crown  her  liberal  walk 
With  company  more  choice,  and  sweeter  talk, 

Look  not  on  Fame,  but  Peace  ;  and  in  a  bower 
Receive  at  last  her  fulness  and  her  power : 
Nor  wholly,  pure  of  heart ! 
Forget  thy  few,  who  would  be  where  thou  art. 


104 


Summum  Bonum 

WAITING  on  Him  who  knows  us  and  our  need, 
Most  need  have  we  to  dare  not,  nor  desire, 
But  as  He  giveth,  softly  to  suspire 
Against  His  gift  with  no  inglorious  greed, 
For  this  is  joy,  though  still  our  joys  recede; 
And,  as  in  octaves  of  a  noble  lyre, 
To  move  our  minds  with   His,  and  clearer, 

higher, 

Sound  forth  our  fate :  for  this  is  strength  in 
deed. 

Thanks  to  His  love  let  earth  and  man  dis 
pense 

In  smoke  of  worship  when  the  heart  is  stillest, 
A  praying  more  than  prayer :  "  Great  good 

have  I, 

Till  it  be  greater  good  to  lay  it  by  ; 
Nor  can  I  lose  peace,  power,  permanence, 
For  these  smile  on  me  from  the  thing  Thou 
wiliest !  " 


105 


When  on  the  Marge  of  Evening 

WHEN  on  the  marge  of  evening  the  last  blue 

light  is  broken, 
And  winds  of  dreamy  odour  are  loosened  from 

afar, 
Or  when  my  lattice  opens,  before  the  lark  hath 

spoken, 
On  dim  laburnum-blossoms,  and  morning's 

dying  star, 

I  think  of  thee  (O  mine  the  more  if  other  eyes 

be  sleeping !), 
Whose  greater  noonday  splendours  the  many 

share  and  see, 
While  sacred  and  for  ever,  some  perfect  law  is 

keeping 
The  late,  the  early  twilight,  alone  and  sweet 

for  me. 


106 


'as 


(THERE  's  a  thrush  on  the  under  bough 

Fluting  evermore  and  now  : 

Keep — young!  "  but  who  knows  how?) 

Jar  in  arm,  they  bade  him  rove 
Through  the  alder's  long  alcove. 
Where  the  hid  spring  musically 
Gushes  to  the  ample  valley. 

Down  the  woodland  corridor, 
Odours  deepened  more  and  more ; 
Blossomed  dogwood  in  the  briars 
Struck  her  faint  delicious  fires ; 
Miles  of  April  passed  between 
Crevices  of  closing  green, 
And  the  moth,  the  violet-lover, 
By  the  wellside  saw  him  hover. 

Ah,  the  slippery  sylvan  dark ! 
Never  after  shall  he  mark 
(On  his  drowned  cheek  down-sinking), 
Noisy  ploughman  drinking,  drinking. 

107 


Quit  of  serving  is  that  wild 
Absent  and  bewitched  child, 
Unto  action,  age,  and  danger 
Thrice  a  thousand  years  a  stranger. 

Fathoms  low,  the  naiads  sing 
In  a  birthday  welcoming  ; 
Water-white  their  breasts,  and  o'er  him, 
Water-grey,  their  eyes  adore  him. 

(There  's  a  thrush  on  the  under  bough 

Fluting  evermore  and  now  : 

Keep  — young  !  "  but  who  knows  how  ?) 


108 


Nocturne 

THE  sun  that  hurt  his  lovers  from  on  high 
Is  fallen ;  she  more  merciful  is  nigh, 
The  blessed  one  whose  beauty's  even  glow 
Gave  never  wound  to  any  shepherd's  eye. 
Above  our  lonely  boat  in  shallows  drifting, 
Alone  her  plaintive  form  ascends  the  sky. 

Oh,  sing  !  the  water-golds  are  deepening  now, 
Almost  a  hush  is  on  the  aspen  bough ; 
Her  light  caresseth  thine,  as  saint  to  saint 
Sweet  interchanged  adorings  may  allow : 
Sing,  Eunoe,  that  lily  throat  uplifting : 
They  are  so  like,  the  holy  Moon  and  thou ! 


109 


"To  Henry  Howard,  Earl  of 
Surrey 

YOUNG  father-poet!  much  in  you  I  praise 
Adventure  high,  romantic,  vehement, 
All  with  inviolate  honour  sealed  and  blent 
To  the  axe-edge  that  cleft  your  soldier  bays ; 
Your  friendships  too,  your  follies,  whims,  and 

frays; 

And  most,  that  verse  of  strict  imperious  bent 
Heard  sweetly  as  from  some  old  harper's  tent, 
And  clanging  in  the  listener's  brain  for  days. 


At  Framlingham  to-night  if  there  should  be 
No  guest  beyond  a  sea-born  wind  that  sighs, 
No  guard  save  moonlight's  crossed  and  trail 
ing  spears, 

And  I,  your  pilgrim,  call  you,  Oh,  let  me 
In  at  the  gate  !  and  smile  into  the  eyes 
That  sought  you,  Surrey,  down  three  hundred 
years. 


no 


Planting  the  Poplar 


BECAUSE  thou'rt  not  an  oak 
To  breast  the  thunder-stroke, 
Or  flamy-fruited  yew 
Darker  than  Time,  how  few 
Of  birds  or  men  or  kine 
Will  love  this  throne  of  thine, 
Scant  Poplar,  without  shade 
Inhospitably  made  ! 
Yet,  branches  never  parted 
From  their  straight  secret  bole, 
Yet,  sap  too  single-hearted  ! 
Prosper  as  my  soul. 


In  loneliness,  in  quaint 
Perpetual  constraint, 
In  gallant  poverty, 
A  girt  and  hooded  tree, 
See  if  against  the  gale 
Our  leafage  can  avail : 
Lithe,  equal,  naked,  true, 
Rise  up  as  spirits  do, 

in 


And  be  a  spirit  crying 
Before  the  folk  that  dream! 
My  slender  early-dying 
Poplar,  by  the  stream. 


112 


7*0  One  who  would  not  Spare 
Himself 

A  CENSER  playing  from  a  heart  all  fire, 
A  flushing,  racing,  singing  mountain  stream 
Thou  art;  and  dear  to  us  of  dull  desire 
In  thy  far-going  dream. 

Full  to  the  grave  be  thy  too  fleeting  way, 
And  full  thereafter :  few  that  know  thee  best 
Will  grudge  it  so,  for  neither  thou  nor  they 
Can  mate  thy  soul  with  rest. 

God  put  thee  from  the  laws  of  Time  adrift. 
Lo,  He  who  moves  without  delay  or  haste, 
Far  less  may  love  the  sheaves  of  ghostly  thrift, 
Than  some  diviner  waste. 

Be  mine  to  ride  in  joy,  ere  thou  art  gone, 
The  flame,  the  torrent,  which  is  one  with  thee! 
Saint,  from  this  pool  of  dying  sweep  us  on 
Where  Life  must  long  to  be. 


Winter  Peace 

APRIL  seemed  a  restless  pain, 
June  a  phantom  in  the  rain  ; 
.  Weary  Autumn  without  grain 
Turned  her  home,  full  of  tears. 
O  my  year,  the  most  in  vain 
Of  the  years! 

While  the  furrowed  field  was  red, 
While  the  roses  rioted. 
While  a  leaf  was  left  to  shed, 
There  was  storm  in  the  air. 
Now  that  troubled  heart  is  dead, 
All  is  fair. 

'Neath  a  glow  of  copper-grey 
Spreads  the  stubble  far  away, 
And  the  hilltop  cedars  play 
Interludes  in  accord, 
And  the  sun  adorns  the  day 
Like  a  sword. 

Even,  usual,  and  slow, 
Blue  enchanted  breakers  go 
114 


Over  carmine  reefs  in  snow, 
With  a  sail  in  the  lee  : 
There  's  the  godhead  that  we  know 
On  the  sea. 

Ah,  let  be  a  promise  vast 
So  mysteriously  downcast! 
I  will  love  this  year  that  passed 
To  her  grave  in  the  wild, 
And  is  clear  of  stain  at  last 
As  a  child. 


Sleep 


O  GLORIOUS  tide,  O  hospitable  tide 
On  whose  mysterious  breast  my  head  hath  lain, 
Lest  I,  all  eased  of  wounds  and  washed  of  stain 
Through  holy  hours,  be  yet  unsatisfied, 
Loose  me  betimes:  for  in  my  soul  abide 
Urgings  of  memory,  and  exile's  pain 
Weighs  on  me,  as  the  spirit  of  one  slain 
May  throb  for  the  old  strife  wherein  he  died. 

Often  and  evermore,  across  the  sea 
Of  dark  and  dreams,  to  fatherlands  of  Day, 
Oh,  speed  me:  as  that  outworn  King  erewhile 
By  kind  Phaeacians  borne  ashore,  so  me, 
Thy  loving  healed  ward,  fail  not  to  lay 
Beneath  the  olive  boughs  of  mine  own  isle. 


116 


Writ  in  my  Lord  Clarendon's 
History  of  the  Rebellion 

How  life  hath  cheapen'd,  and  how  blank 

The  Worlde  is  !  like  a  fen 

Where  long  ago  unstained  sank 

The  starrie  gentlemen: 

Since  Marston  Moor  and  Newbury  drank 

King  Charles  his  gentlemen. 

t 
If  Fate  in  any  air  accords 

What  Fate  deny'd,  Oh,  then 

I  ask  to  be  among  your  Swordes, 

My  joyous  gentlemen; 

Towards  Honour's  heaven  to  goe,  and  towards 

King  Charles  his  gentlemen  ! 


117 


In  a  February  Garden 

ONE  rose  till  after  snowtime 
O'erlooked  the  sodden  grass ; 
Now  crocuses  are  twenty 
With  spear  and  torch  a  plenty, 
To  keep  our  Candlemas. 

So  thin  that  winter  greyness, 
So  light  that  sleep  forlorn, 
No  seventh  week  uncloses 
Between  the  martyr  roses 
And  crocus  newly  born. 

All  doubt  is  hushed  for  ever. 

Confuted  without  sound, 

All  ruin  featly  ended, 

When  bulbs  begin  their  splendid 

Gay  muster  overground  ; 

And  mid  the  golden  heralds 
That  ride  the  icy  breeze, 
Man,  too,  divinely  vernal, 
Storms  into  life  eternal 
Victoriously  with  these. 
118 


O  Beauty,  O  Persistence 

Ineffable  and  strong! 

Would  we  had  borne  with  Sorrow 

In  her  unlasting  morrow: 

And  Death  was  not  for  long. 


119 


A  Valediction 

R.  L.  S.:  A.  D.  MDCCCXCIF 

WHEN  from  the  vista  of  the  Book  I  shrink, 
From  lauded  pens  that  earn  ignoble  wage 
Begetting  nothing  joyous,  nothing  sage, 
Nor  keep  with  Shakespeare's  use  one  golden 

link; 

When  heavily  my  sanguine  spirits  sink 
To  read  too  plain  on  each  impostor  page 
Only  of  kings  the  broken  lineage, — 
Well  for  my  peace  if  then  on  thee  I  think, 

Louis,  our  priest  of  letters,  and  our  knight 
With  whose  familiar  baldric  Hope  is  girt, 
From  whose  young  hands  she  bears  the  Grail 

away. 

All  glad,  all  great !  Truer  because  thou  wert, 
I  am  and  must  be;  and  in  thy  known  light 
Go  down  to  dust,  content  with  this  my  day. 


120 


A  Footpath  Morality 

ALONG  the  Hills,  height  unto  height 

Tosses  the  dappled  light, 

Rills  in  a  torrent  flow, 

And  cuckoo  calls  beyond  the  third  hedge 
row. 

Young  winds  nothing  can  quell 

Scale  the  wild-chestnut  citadel, 

Again  to  make 

Its  thousand  faery  white  pagodas  shake. 

Up  many  a  lane 

The  blue  vervain 

A  coverlid  hath  featly  spread 

For  the  bees'  bed, 

That  those  tired  sylvan  thieves 

May  lie  most  soft  on  the  sweet  and  scalloped 
leaves. 

And  by  to-morrow  morn 

Bright  agrimony,  in  the  thickets  born, 

Will  high  uphold 

Each  cinquefoil  of  plain  gold; 

Dogwood  in  white  will  hood  herself  apace, 

And  betony  flaunt  a  varied  gypsy  mace, 

121 


And  copper  pimpernel,  true  as  a  clock, 
On  some  waste  common,  by  a  rock 
Her  small  dark-centred  wheel  draw  in 
Long,  long  ere  dusk  begin. 

This  day 

Of  infinite  May 

Is  far  more  fitly  yours  than  ours, 

O  spirit-bodied  flowers  ! 

What  heart  disordered  sore 

Comes  through  the  greenwood  door, 

Shall  for  your  sake 

Find  sap  and  soil  and  dew,  and  shall  not  break ; 

And  hearts  beneath  no  ban 

Will  in  your  sight  some  penance  do  for  man, 

Poor  lagging  man,  content  to  be 

Sick  with  the  impact  of  eternity, 

Who  might  keep  step  with  you  in  the  low  grass, 

Best  part  of  one  strange  pageant  made  in  joy 

to  pass  ! 

Not  ye,  not  ye,  the  privilege  disown 
To  flourish  fair  and  fall  fair,  and  be  strewn 
Deep  in  that  Will  of  God,  where  blend 
The  origin  of  beauty  and  the  end. 

122 


The  Light  of  the  House 

BEYOND  the  cheat  of  Time,  here  where  you 

died,  you  live ; 

You  pace  the  garden  walk,  secure  and  sensitive ; 
You  linger  on  the  stair:  Love's  lonely  pulses 

leap! 
The  harpsichord  is  shaken,  the  dogs  look  up 

from  sleep. 


Here,  after  all  the  years,  you  keep  the  heirdom 

still; 
The  youth  and  joy  in  you  achieve  their  olden 

will, 
Unbidden,    undeterred,    with    waking    sense 

adored ; 
And  still  the  house  is  happy  that  hath  so  dear 

a  lord. 


To  every  inmate  heart,  confirmed  in  cheer  you 

brought, 
Your  name  is  as  a  spell  midway  of  speech  and 

thought, 

123 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


And  to  a  wonted  guest  (not  awestruck  here 
tofore), 

The  sunshine  that  was  you  floods  all  the  open 
door. 


124 


An  Outdoor  Litany 


Donee  misereatur  nostri. 

THE  spur  is  red  upon  the  briar, 
The  sea-kelp  whips  the  wave  ashore ; 
The  wind  shakes  out  the  coloured  fire 
From  lamps  a-row  on  the  sycamore ; 
The  bluebird  with  his  flitting  note 
Shows  to  wild  heaven  his  wedding-coat ; 
The  mink  is  busy ;  herds  again 
Go  hillward  in  the  honeyed  rain ; 
The  midges  meet.  I  cry  to  Thee 
Whose  heart 

Remembers  each  of  these:  Thou  art 
My  God  who  hast  forgotten  me ! 

Bright  from  the  mast,  a  scarf  unwound, 
The  lined  gulls  in  the  offing  ride; 
Along  an  edge  of  marshy  ground 
The  shad-bush  enters  like  a  bride. 
Yon  little  clouds  are  washed  of  care 
That  climb  the  blue  New  England  air, 
And  almost  merrily  withal 
The  hyla  tunes  at  evenfall 

125 


His  oboe  in  a  mossy  tree. 

So  too, 

Am  I  not  Thine  ?  Arise,  undo 

This  fear  Thou  hast  forgotten  me. 

Happy  the  vernal  rout  that  come 

To  their  due  offices  to-day, 

And  strange,  if  in  Thy  mercy's  sum, 

Excluded  man  alone  decay. 

I  ask  no  triumph,  ask  no  joy, 

Save  leave  to  live,  in  law's  employ. 

As  to  a  weed,  to  me  but  give 

Thy  sap  !  lest  aye  inoperative 

Here  in  the  Pit  my  strength  shall  be 

And  still 

Help  me  endure  the  Pit,  until 

Thou  wilt  not  have  forgotten  me. 


126 


Of  Joan's  Youth 


I  WOULD  unto  my  fair  restore 

A  simple  thing: 

The  flushing  cheek  she  had  before ! 

Out-velveting 

No  more,  no  more, 

On  our  sad  shore. 

The  carmine  grape,  the  moth's  auroral  wing. 

Ah,  say  how  winds  in  flooding  grass 

Unmoor  the  rose ; 

Or  guileful  ways  the  salmon  pass 

To  sea,  disclose : 

For  so,  alas, 

With  Love,  alas, 

With  fatal,  fatal  Love  a  girlhood  goes. 


127 


In  a  Brecon  Valley 


Patulis  ubi  vallibus  errans 
Subjacet  aeriis  montibus  Isca  pater. 

H.  V.  Ad  Posteros. 

I 

I  FOLLOWED  thee,  wild  stream  of  Paradise, 
White  Usk,  for  ever  showering  the  sunned  bee 
In  the  pink  chestnut  and  the  hawthorn  tree ; 
And  all  along  had  magical  surmise 
Of  mountains  fluctuant  in  those  vesper  skies, 
As  unto  mermen,  caverned  in  mid-sea, 
Far  up  the  vast  green  reaches,  soundlessly 
The  giant  breakers  form,  and  fall,  and  rise. 

Above  thy  poet's  dust,  by  yonder  yew, 
Ere  distance  perished,  ere  a  star  began, 
His  clear  monastic  measure,  heard  of  few, 
Through  lonelier  glens  of  mine  own  being  ran; 
And  thou  to  me  wert  dear,  because  I  knew 
The   God  who  made  thee  gracious,  and  the 
man. 


128 


II 

IF,  by  that  second  lover's  power  controlled, 
In  sweet  symbolic  rite  thy  breath  o'erfills 
Fields  of  no  war  with  vagrant  daffodils, 
From  distance  unto  distance  trailing  gold ; 
If  dazzling  sands  or  thickets  thee  enfold, 
Transfigured  Usk,  where  from  their  mossy  sills 
Grey  hamlets  kiss  thee,  and  by  herded  hills 
Diviner  run  thy  shallows  than  of  old  ;  — 

If  intellectual  these,  Oh!  name  my  Vaughan 
Creator  too  :  and  close  his  memory  keep 
Who  from  thy  fountain,  kind  to  him,  hath 

drawn 

Birth,  energy,  and  joy;  devotion  deep; 
A  play  of  thought    more    mystic    than   the 

dawn, 
And   death   at   home;   and   centuried   sylvan 

sleep. 


129 


A  Song  of  Far  Travel 

MANY  a  time  some  drowsy  oar  from  the  nearer 

bank  invited, 
Crossed  a  narrow  stream,  and  bore  in  among 

the  reeds  moon-lighted, 
There  to  leave  me  on  a  shore  no  ferryman  hath 

sighted. 

Many  a  time  a  mountain  stile,  dark  and  bright 
with  sudden  wetting, 

Lured  my  vagrant  foot  the  while  'twixt  up 
lifting  and  down-setting,  — 

Whither  ?  Thousand  mile  on  mile,  beyond  the 
last  forgetting. 

Long  by  hidden  ways  I  wend  (past  occasion 

grown  a  ranger) ; 
Yet  enchantment,  like  a  friend,  takes   from 

death  the  tang  of  danger  : 
Hardly  river  or  road  can  end  where  I  need 

step  a  stranger. 


130 


Spring 


With  a  difference.  —  HAMLET. 


AGAIN  the  bloom,  the  northward  flight, 
The  fount  freed  at  its  silver  height, 
And  down  the  deep  woods  to  the  lowest 
The  fragrant  shadows  scarred  with  light. 

O  inescapeable  joy  of  Spring  ! 
For  thee  the  world  shall  leap  and  sing ; 
But  by  her  darkened  door  thou  goest 
Henceforward  as  a  spectral  thing. 


The  Colour-Bearer 

THY  charge  was :  "Hold  My  banner 
Against  our  hidden  foe; 
To  war  where  sounds  no  manner 
Of  glorious  music,  go  !  " 
And  like  Thy  word  my  answer  all  joyless  : 
"Be  it  so." 

Ah,  not  to  brave  Thy  censure 
But  win  Thy  smile  of  light, 
My  heart  of  misadventure 
Will  end  in  the  losing  fight, 
And  lie  out  yonder,  wattled  with  wounds  from 
left  to  right. 

The  day  will  pass  of  torment, 
The  evenfall  be  sweet 
When  I  shall  wear  for  garment 
The  nakedness  of  defeat. 
But  when  afield  Thou  comest,  and  look'st  in 
vain  to  meet 

That  eagle  of  the  wartime, 
That  oriflamme,  outrolled 
132 


With  strength  of  staff  aforetime, 
With  cleanly  and  costly  fold, — 
Ride  on,  ride  on !  and  seek  me  with  lanthorns 
through  the  cold, 

And  take  from  me  (turned  donor 
That  night  on  blood-soaked  sand), 
The  stick  and  rag  of  Honour 
There  safe  in  a  stiffened  hand, 
Not  left,  not  lost,  nor  ever  a  spoil  in  the  vic 
tor's  land. 


Sanctuary 


HIGH  above  hate  I  dwell: 
O  storms  !  farewell. 

Though  at  my  sill  your  daggered  thunders  play 
Lawless  and  loud  to-morrow  as  to-day, 
To  me  they  sound  more  small 
Than  a  young  fay's  footfall : 
Soft  and  far-sunken,  forty  fathoms  low 
In  Long  Ago, 

And  winnowed  into  silence  on  that  wind 
Which  takes  wars  like  a  dust,  and  leaves  but 
love  behind. 

Hither  Felicity 

Doth  climb  to  me, 

And  bank  me  in  with  turf  and  marjoram 

Such  as  bees  lip,  or  the  new-weaned  lamb ; 

With  golden  barberry-wreath, 

And  bluets  thick  beneath ; 

One  grosbeak,  too,  mid  apple-buds  a  guest 

With  bud-red  breast, 

Is  singing,  singing  !  All  the  hells  that  rage 

Float  less  than  April  fog  below  our  hermitage. 

134 


Emily  Bronte 


WHAT  sacramental  hurt  that  brings 

The  terror  of  the  truth  of  things 

Had  changed  thee?  Secret  be  it  yet. 

'Twas  thine,  upon  a  headland  set, 

To  view  no  isles  of  man's  delight, 

With  lyric  foam  in  rainbow  flight, 

But  all  a-swing,  a-gleam,  mid  slow  uproar, 

Black  sea,  and  curved  uncouth  sea-bitten  shore. 


Pascal 

THOU  lovedst  life,  but  not  to  brand  it  thine 
(O  rich  in  all  forborne  felicities  !), 
Nor  use  it  with  marauding  power,  to  seize 
And  stain  the  sweet  earth's  blue  horizon-line. 
Virgin  the  grape  might  in  the  trellis  twine 
Where  thou  hadst  long  ago  an  hour  of  ease, 
And  foot  of  thine  across  the  unpressed  leas 
Went  light  as  some  Idsean  foot  divine. 

Spirit  so  abstinent,  in  thy  deeps  lay 

What  passion  of  possession  ?  Day  by  day 

Was  there  no  thirst  upon  thee,  sharp  and  pure, 

In  forward  sea-like  surges  unforgot? 

Yes :  and  in  life  and  death  those  joys  endure 

More  blessedly,  that  men  can  name  them  not. 


136 


Borderlands 

THROUGH  all  the  evening, 

All  the  virginal  long  evening, 

Down  the  blossomed  aisle  of  April  it  is  dread 

to  walk  alone ; 
For  there  the  intangible  is  nigh,  the  lost  is 

ever-during ; 
And  who  would  suffer  again  beneath  a  too 

divine  alluring, 
Keen  as  the  ancient  drift  of  sleep  on  dying 

faces  blown  ? 

Yet  in  the  valley, 

At  a  turn  of  the  orchard  alley, 

When  a  wild  aroma  touched  me  in  the  moist 

and  moveless  air, 
Like  breath  indeed  from  out  Thee,  or  as  airy 

vesture  round  Thee, 
Then  was  it  I   went  faintly,  for  fear   I   had 

nearly  found  Thee, 
O  Hidden,  O  Perfect,  O  Desired  !  O  first  and 

final  Fair  ! 


137 


Ode  for  a  Master  Mariner 
Ashore 

THERE  in  his  room,  whene'er  the  moon  looks 

in, 

To  silver  now  a  shell,  and  now  a  fin, 
And  o'er  his  chart  glide  like  an  argosy, 
Quiet  and  old  sits  he. 

Danger!  he  hath  grown  homesick  for  thy  smile. 
Where  hidest  thou  the  while,  heart's  boast, 
Strange  face  of  beauty  sought  and  lost, 
Star-face  that  lured  him  out  from  boyhood's 

isle  ? 

Blown  clear  from  dull  indoors,  his  dreams  be 
hold 

Night-water  smoke  and  sparkle  as  of  old, 
The  taffrail  lurch,  the  sheets  triumphant  toss 
Their  veering  weight  across. 
On,  on  he  wears,  the  seaman  long  exiled, 
To  lands  where  stunted  cedars  throw 
A  lace-like  shadow  over  snow, 
Or  tropic  fountains  wash  their  agates  wild. 

138 


Again  play  up  and  down  the  briny  spar 

Odours  of  Surinam  or  Zanzibar, 

Till  blithely  thence  he  ploughs,  in  visions  new, 

The  Labradorian  blue; 

All  homeless  hurricanes  about  him  break  ; 

The  purples  of  spent  day  he  sees 

From  Samos  to  the  Hebrides, 

And  drowned  men  dancing  darkly  in  his  wake. 

Where  the  small  deadly  foam-caps,  well  de 
scried, 

Top,  tier  on  tier,  the  hundred-mountained  tide, 

Away,  and  far  away,  his  barque  is  borne 

Riding  the  noisy  morn, 

Plunges,  and  preens  her  wings,  and  laughs  to 
know 

The  helm  and  tightening  halyards  still 

Follow  the  urging  of  his  will, 

And  scoff  at  sullen  earth  a  league  below. 

Alas!  Fate  bars  him  from  his  heirdom  high, 
And  shackles  him  with  many  an  inland  tie, 
And  of  his  only  wisdom  makes  a  jibe 
Amid  an  alien  tribe : 

139 


No  wave  abroad  but  moans  his  fallen  state. 
The  trade-wind  ranges  now,  the  trade-wind 

roars  ! 

Why  is  it  on  a  yellowing  page  he  pores? 
Ah,  why  this  hawser  fast  to  a  garden  gate? 

Thou  friend  so  long  withdrawn,  so  deaf,  so 

dim, 

Familiar  Danger,  Oh,  forget  not  him! 
Repeat  of  thine  evangel  yet  the  whole 
Unto  his  subject  soul, 
Who  suffers  no  such  palsy  of  her  drouth, 
Nor  hath  so  tamely  worn  her  chain, 
But  she  may  know  that  voice  again, 
And  shake  the  reefs  with  answer  of  her  mouth. 

And  give  him  back,  before  his  passion  fail, 

The  singing  cordage  and  the  hollow  sail, 

And  level  with  those  ageing  eyes  let  be 

The  bright  unsteady  sea; 

And  like  a  film  remove  from  sense  and  brain 

This  pasture  wall,  these  boughs  that  run 

Their  evening  arches  to  the  sun, 

Yon  hamlet  spire  across  the  sown  champaign ; 

140 


And  on  the  shut  space  and  the  shallow  hour, 

Turn  the  great  floods !  and  to  thy  spousal  bower, 

With  rapt  arrest  and  solemn  loitering, 

Him  whom  thou  lovedst,  bring: 

That  he,  thy  faithful  one,  with  praising  lip, 

Not  having,  at  the  last,  less  grace 

Of  thee  than  had  his  roving  race, 

Sum  up  his  strength  to  perish  with  a  ship. 


141 


OXFORD  AND  LONDON 
XXVI   SONNETS 


OXFORD 
I.  The  Tow-Path 

FURROW  to  furrow,  oar  to  oar  succeeds, 
Each  length  away,  more  bright,  more  exquisite ; 
The  sister  shells  that  hither,  thither,  flit 
Strew  the  long  stream  like  scattered  maple- 
seeds. 

A  comrade  on  the  marge  now  lags,  now  leads, 
Who  with  short  calls  his  pace  doth  intermit: 
An  angry  Pan,  afoot ;  but  if  he  sits, 
Auspicious  Pan  among  the  river  reeds. 

West  of  the  glowing  hayricks,  tawny  black 
Where  waters  by  their  warm  escarpments  run, 
Two  lovers,  newly  crossed  from  Kennington, 
Print  in  the  early  dew  a  married  track, 
And  drain  the  aroma'd  eve,  and  spend  the  sun, 
Ere  in  laborious  health  the  crews  come  back. 


II.  Ad  Antiquarium 

MY  gentle  Aubrey,  who  in  everything 
Hadst  of  thy  city's  youth  so  lovely  lust, 
Yet  never  lineal  to  her  towers  august 
Thy  spirit  could  fix,  or  perfectly  upbring, 
Sleep,  sleep!  I  ope,  not  unremembering, 
Thy  comely  manuscript,  and  interthrust 
Find  delicate  hueless  leaves  more  sad  than  dust, 
Two  centuries  unkissed  of  any  Spring. 

Filling  a  homesick  page  beneath  a  lime, 
Thy  mood  beheld,  as  mine  thy  debtor's  now, 
The  endless  terraces  of  ended  Time 
Vague  in  green  twilight.  Goodly  was  release 
Into  that  Past  where  these  poor  leaves,  and 

thou, 
Do  freshen  in  the  air  of  eldest  peace. 


146 


in.  Martyrs*  Memorial 

SUCH  natural  debts  of  love  our  Oxford  knows, 
So  many  ancient  dues  undesecrate, 
I  marvel  how  the  landmark  of  a  hate 
For  witness  unto  future  time  she  chose; 
How  'gainst  her  own  corroborate  ranks  arose 
The  Three,  in  great  denial  only  great, 
For  Art's  enshrining  !  Thus,  averted  straight, 
My  soul  to  seek  a  holier  captain  goes: 

That  sweet  adventurer  whom  Truth  befell 
Whenas  the  synagogues  were  watching  not ; 
Whose  crystal  name  on  royal  Oriel 
Hangs  like  a  shield;  who  to  an  outland  spot 
Led  hence,  beholds  his  Star,  and  counts  it  well 
To  live  of  all  his  dear  domain  forgot. 


IV.  Parks  Road 

VIEWED  yesterday,  in  sad  elusive  light, 
These  everlasting  heptarchs,  tree  by  tree, 
Seemed  filing  off  to  exile,  lingeringly, 
Each  with  his  giant  falchion,  kinless  quite. 
All  the  wild  winter  day  and  flooded  night 
They  feigned  to  march  far  as  the  eye  could  see, 
Through  transient  oceans  plunging  to  the  knee 
Their  centuried  greaves,  ebon  and  malachite. 

To-day,  accustomed  bole  and  branch  all  bare 
Stand   with  old  gems  inlaid.    Like  coloured 

snow 

Or  vista'd  flame  along  the  drowsy  air, 
Their  gold-green  lichens  stir  and  cling  and  glow. 
What  secret  craftsmen  painted  them  so  fair? 
Angels  of  Moisture  and  the  Long  Ago. 


148 


v.  Tom 

HARK!  the  king  bell,  loud  in  his  vesper  choir. 
As  in  between  each  golden  roar  doth  come 
That  solemn,  plangent,  unregarded  hum 
Chiding  the  truant  with  archaic  ire, 
On  Worcester  mere  far  off,  in  elfin  gyre 
The  wavelets  laugh,  and  laughter  showereth 

from 

May's  chestnut  like  a  lampadarium 
By  Brasenose,  with  every  point  afire. 

Yet  over  all  roofs  to  the  uttermost, 

Call,  Shepherd  dear,  from  thy  dream-haunted 

ground : 

For  some  there  be,  on  whatsoever  coast, 
In  midst  of  any  morrow's  ordered  round, 
Hear  as  of  old  (in  earth  and  heaven  an  host!) 
And  like  young  lambs,  leap  homeward  at  the 

sound. 


149 


vi.  On  the  Pre- Reformation 
Churches  about  Oxford 


IMPERIAL  Iffley,  Cumnor  bowered  in  green, 
And  Templar  Sandford  in  the  boatman's  call, 
And  sweet-belled  Appleton,  and  Elsfield  wall 
That  dost  upon  adoring  ivies  lean ; 
Meek  Binsey;  Dorchester,  where  streams  con 
vene 

Bidding  on  graves  thy  solemn  shadow  fall ; 
Clear  Cassington,  soaring  perpetual, 
Holton,  and  Hampton  Poyle,  and  fanes  be 
tween  : 

If  one  of  all  in  your  sad  courts  that  come 
Beloved  and  disparted !  be  your  own, 
Kin  to  the  souls  ye  had,  while  yet  endures 
Some  memory  of  a  great  communion  known 
At  home  in  quarries  of  old  Christendom, — 
Ah,  mark  him  :  he  will  lay  his  cheek  to  yours. 


150 


II 

Is  this  the  end  ?   Is  this  the  pilgrim's  day 
For  dread,  for  dereliction,  and  for  tears  ? 
Rather,  from  grass  and  air  and  many  spheres 
In  prophecy  his  heart  is  called  away  ; 
And  under  English  eaves,  more  still  than  they, 
Far-off,  incoming,  wonderful,  he  hears 
The  long-arrested,  the  believing  years 
Carry  the  sea-wall  !  Shall  he,  sighing,  say : 

"  Farewell  to  Faith,  for  she  is  dead  at  best 
Who  had  such  beauty"?  or,  with  spirit  fain 
To  watch  beside  her  darkened  doors,  go  by 
With  a  new  psalm  :  "  O  banished   Light  so 

nigh ! 

Of  them  was  I,  who  bore  thee  and  who  blest: 
Even    here  remember    me  when    thou    shalt 

reign." 


vii.  A  December  Walk 

WHITHERSOEVER  cold  and  fair  ye  flow, 
Take  me,  O  gentle  moon  and  gentler  wind, 
Past  Wyatt's  cumbering  portal,  frost-entwined, 
And  Merton  'neath  that  huge  tiara's  glow, 
And  groves  in  bridal  gossamer  below 
Saint    Mary's    armoured    spire ;  and  whence 

aligned 

In  altered  eminence  for  dawn  to  find 
Sleep  the  droll  Caesars,  hooded  with  the  snow. 

White  sacraments  of  weather,  shine  on  me  ! 
Upbear  my  footfall  and  my  fancy  sift, 
Lest  either  blemish  an  ensainted  ground 
Spread  so  with  childhood.  Bid  with  me,  out 
bound, 

On  recollected  wing  mine  angel  drift 
Across  new  spheres  of  immortality. 


152 


viii.  The  Old  Dial  of  Corpus 

WARDEN  of  hours  and  ages,  here  I  dwell, 
Who    saw  young    Keble    pass,  with  sighing 

shook 

For  good  unborn;  and  towards  a  willow  nook, 
Pole,  princely  in  the  senate  and  the  cell ; 
And  doubting  the  near  boom  of  Osney  bell, 
Turning  on  me  that  sweetly  subtile  look, 
Erasmus,  in  his  breast  an  Attic  book  : 
Peacemakers  all,  their  dreams  to  ashes  fell. 

Naught  steadfast  may  I  image  nor  attain 
Save  steadfast  labour  ;   futile  must  I  grope 
After  my  god,  like  him,  inconstant  bright: 
But  sun  and  shade  will  unto  you  remain 
Alternately  a  symbol  and  a  hope, 
Men,  spirits  !  of  Emmanuel  your  Light. 


IX.  Rooks  :New  College  Gardens 

THROUGH  rosy  cloud  and  over  thorny  towers, 
Their  wings  with  darkling  autumn    distance 

filled, 

From  Isis'  valley  border,  many-hilled, 
The    rooks    are    crowding  home    as  evening 

lowers  : 

Not  for  men  only,  and  their  musing  hours 
By  battled  walls  did  gracious  Wykeham  build 
These  dewy  spaces  early  sown  and  stilled, 
These  dearest  inland  melancholy  bowers. 

Blest  birds !  A  book  held  open  on  the  knee 
Below,  is  all  they  guess  of  Adam's  blight: 
With  surer  art  the  while,  and  simpler  rite, 
They  gather  power  in  some  monastic  tree 
Where  breathe  against  their  docile  breasts  by 

night 
The  scholar's  star,  the  star  of  sanctity. 


'54 


X.  Above  Port  Meadow 

THE  plain  gives    freedom.    Hither  from  the 

town 

How  oft  a  dreamer  and  a  book  of  yore 
Escaped    the  lamplit  Square,  and    heard    no 

more 

Inroll  from  Cowley  turf  the  game's  renown, 
But  bade  the  vernal  sky  with  spices  drown 
His  head  by  Plato's  in  the  grass,  before 
Yon  oar  that 's  never  old,  the  sunset  oar, 
At  Medley  Lock  was  laid  reluctant  down  ! 

So  seeming  far  the  confines  and  the  crowd, 
The  gross  routine,  the  cares  that  vex  and  tire, 
From  this    large  light,    sad    thoughts    in    it, 

high-driven, 

Go  happier  than  the  inly-moving  cloud 
Who  lets  her  vesture  fall,  a  floss  of  fire, 
Abstracted,  on  the  ivory  hills  of  heaven. 


'55 


xi.  Undertones  at  Magdalen 

FAIR  are  the  finer  creature-sounds  ;  of  these 
Is  Magdalen  full :  her  bees,  the  while  they 

drop 

Susurrant  to  the  garth  from  weeds  atop  ; 
And  round  the  priestless  Pulpit,  auguries 
Of  wrens  in  council  from  an  hundred  leas ; 
And  merry  fish  of  Cherwell,  fain  to  stop 
The  water-plantain's  way ;  and  deer  that  crop 
Delicious  herbage  under  choral  trees. 

The  cry  for  silver  and  gold  in  Christendom 
Without,    threads    not    her  silence    and    her 

dark. 

Only  against  the  isolate  Tower  there  break 
Low  rhythmic  murmurs  of  good  men  to  come : 
Invasive  seas  of  hushed  approach  that  make 
Memorial  music,  would  the  ear  but  hark. 


xii.  A  Last  View 


WHERE  down  the  hill,  across  the  hidden  ford 
Stretches  the  open  aisle  from  scene  to  scene, 
By  halted  horses  silently  we  lean, 
Gazing  enchanted  from  our  steeper  sward. 
How  yon  low  loving  skies  of  April  hoard 
A  plot  of  pinnacles  !  and  how  with  sheen 
Of  spike  and  ball  her  languid  clouds  between 
Grey  Oxford  grandly  rises  riverward ! 

Sweet  on  those  dim  long-dedicated  walls 
Silver  as  rain  the  frugal  sunshine  falls ; 
Slowly  sad  eyes  resign  them,  bound  afar. 
Dear  Beauty,  dear  Tradition,  fare  you  well, 
And  powers  that  aye  aglow  in  you,  impel 
Our  quickening  spirits  from  the  slime  we  are. 


'57 


II 

STARS  in  the  bosom  of  thy  braided  tide, 

Soft  air  and  ivy  on  thy  gracile  stone, 

O  Glory  of  the  West,  as  thou  wert  sown. 

Stand  perfect :  O  miraculous,  abide  ! 

And  still,    for  greatness    flickering  from  thy 

side, 

Eternal  alchemist,  evoke,  enthrone 
True  heirs  in  true  succession,  later  blown 
From  that  same  seed  of  fire  which  never  died. 

Nor  Love  shall  lack  her  solace,  to  behold 
Ranged  to  the  morrow's  melancholy  verge, 
Thy  lights  uprisen  in    Thought's  disclosing 

spaces ; 

And  round  some  beacon-spirit,  stable,  old, 
In  radiant  broad  tumultuary  surge 
For  ever,  the  young  voices,  the  young  faces. 


LONDON 

» 

I.  On  First  Entering  Westmin 
ster  Abbey 

HOLY  of  England  !  since  my  light  is  short 
And  faint.  Oh,  rather  by  the  sun  anew 
Of  timeless  passion  set  my  dial  true. 
That  with  thy  saints  and  thee  I  may  consort; 
And  wafted  in  the  cool  enshadowed  port 
Of  poets,  seem  a  little  sail  long  due, 
And  be  as  one  the  call  of  memory  drew 
Unto  the  saddle  void  since  Agincourt. 

Not  now  for  secular  love's  unquiet  lease 
Receive  my  soul,  who  rapt  in  thee  erewhile 
Hath  broken  tryst  with  transitory  things ; 
But  seal  with  her  a  marriage  and  a  peace 
Eternal,  on  thine  Edward's  altar  isle, 
Above  the  storm-spent  sea  of  ended  Kings. 


159 


ii.  Fog 


LIKE  bodiless  water  passing  in  a  sigh, 

Through  palsied  streets  the  fatal  shadows  flow, 

And  in  their  sharp  disastrous  undertow 

Suck  in  the  morning  sun,  and  all  the  sky. 

The  towery  vista  sinks  upon  the  eye, 

As  if  it  heard  the  horns  of  Jericho, 

Black  and  dissolved ;  nor  could  the  founder, 

know 
How  what  was  built  so  bright  should  daily  die. 

Thy  mood  with  man's  is  broken  and  blent  in, 
City   of  Stains  !   and   ache   of  thought  doth 

drown 

The  natural  light  in  which  thy  life  began ; 
Great  as  thy  dole  is,  smirched  with  his  sin, 
Greater  and  elder  yet  the  love  of  man 
Full  in  thy  look,  though  the  dark  visor 's  down. 


1 60 


in.  Sf.  Peter-ad- Vincula 

Too  well  I  know,  pacing  the  place  of  awe. 
Three  Queens,  young  save  in  trouble,  moulder 

by; 

More  in  his  halo,  Monmouth's  mocking  eye, 
The  eagle  Essex  in  a  harpy's  claw; 
Seymour  and  Dudley,  and  stout  heads  that 

saw 

Sundown  of  Scotland  ;  how  with  treasons  lie 
White  martyrdoms  :  rank  in  a  company 
Breaker  and  builder  of  the  eternal  Law. 

Oft  as  I  come,  the  piteous  garden-row 

Of  ruined  roses  hanging  from  the  stem, 

Where  winds  of  old  defeat  yet  batter  them, 

Infects  me :  suddenly  must  I  depart, 

Ere  thought  of  man's  injustice  then  and  now 

Add  to  these  aisles  one  other  broken  heart. 


161 


iv.  Strikers  in  Hyde  Park 

A  WOOF  reversed  the  fatal  shuttles  weave, 
How  slow !  but  never  once  they  slip  the  thread. 
Hither,  upon  the  Georgian  idlers*  tread, 
Up  spacious  ways  the  lindens  interleave, 
Clouding  the  royal  air  since  yester-eve, 
Come  men  bereft  of  time  and  scant  of  bread, 
Loud,  who  were  dumb,  immortal,  who  were 

dead. 
Through  the  cowed  world  their  kingdom  to 

retrieve. 

What  ails  thee,  England?    Altar,  mart,  and 

grange 

Dream  of  the  knife  by  night;  not  so,  not  so 
The  clear  Republic  waits  the  general  throe, 
Along  her  noonday  mountains'  open  range. 
God  be  with  both  !  for  one  is  young  to  know 
The  other's  rote  of  evil  and  of  change. 


162 


v.  Changes  in  the  "Temple 

THE  cry  is  at  thy  gates,  long-loved  ground. 
Again  :  for  oft  ere  now  thy  children  went 
Beggared  and  wroth,  and  parting  greeting  sent 
Some  old  red  alley  with  a  dial  crowned ; 
Some  house  of  honour,  in  a  glory  bound 
With  lives  and  deaths  of  spirits  excellent ; 
Some  tree  rude-taken  from  his  kingly  tent 
Hard  by  a  little  fountain's  friendly  sound. 

Oh,  for  Virginius'  hand,  if  only  that 
Maintain  the  whole,  and  spoil  these  spoilings 

soon ! 

Better  the  scowling  Strand  should  lose,  alas, 
Her  walled  oasis,  and  where  once  it  was 
All  mournful  in  the  cleared  quadrangle  sat 
Echo   and  ivy,  and  the  loitering  moon. 


163 


vi.  The  Lights  of  London 

THE  evenfall,  so  slow  on  hills,  hath  shot 
Far  down  into  the  valley's  cold  extreme, 
Untimely  midnight;  spire  and  roof  and  stream 
Like  fleeing  spectres,  shudder  and  are  not. 
The  Hampstead  hollies,  from  their  sylvan  plot 
Yet  cloudless,  lean  to  watch  as  in  a  dream, 
From  chaos  climb  with  many  a  hasty  gleam, 
London,  one  moment  fallen  and  forgot. 

Her  booths  begin  to  flare ;  and  gases  bright 
Prick  door  and  window ;  every  street  obscure 
Sparkles  and  swarms  with  nothing  true  nor 

sure, 

Full  as  a  marsh  of  mist  and  winking  light : 
Heaven  thickens  over,  Heaven  that  cannot 

cure 
Her  tear  by  day,  her  fevered  smile  by  night. 


164 


vii.  Doves 

AH,  if  man's  boast  and  man's  advance  be  vain, 
And  yonder  bells  of  Bow,  loud-echoing  home, 
And  the  lone  Tree,  foreknow  it,  and  the  Dome, 
That  monstrous  island  of  the  middle  main  ; 
If  each  inheritor  must  sink  again 
Under  his  sires,  as  falleth  where  it  clomb 
Back    on    the    gone    wave    the    disheartened 

foam  ?  — 
I  crossed  Cheapside,  and  this  was  in  my  brain. 

What  folly  lies  in  forecasts  and  in  fears  ! 
Like  a  wide  laughter  sweet  and  opportune, 
Wet  from  the  fount,  three  hundred  doves  of 

Paul's 
Shook  their  warm  wings,  drizzling  the  golden 

noon, 

And  in  their  rain-cloud  vanished  up  the  walls. 
"God    keeps,"  I   said,    "our  little  flock   of 

years." 


VIIL  In  the  Reading-Room  of 
the  British  Museum 

PRAISED  be  the  moon  of  books  !  that  doth 

above 

A  world  of  men,  the  sunken  Past  behold, 
And  colour  spaces  else  too  void  and  cold 
To  make  a  very  heaven  again  thereof; 
As  when  the  sun  is  set  behind  a  grove, 
And  faintly  unto  nether  ether  rolled, 
All  night  his  whiter  image  and  his  mould 
Grows  beautiful  with  looking  on  her  love. 

Thou,  therefore,  moon  of  so  divine  a  ray, 
Lend  to  our  steps  both  fortitude  and  light ! 
Feebly  along  a  venerable  way 
They  climb  the  infinite,  or  perish  quite : 
Nothing  are  days  and  deeds  to  such  as  they, 
While  in  this  liberal  house  thy  face  is  bright. 


166 


ix.  Sunday  Chime  sin  the  City 

ACROSS  the  bridge,  where  in  the  morning  blow 
The  wrinkled  tide  turns  homeward,  and  is  fain 
Homeward  to  drag  the  black  sea-goer's  chain, 
And  the  long  yards  by  Dowgate  dipping  low ; 
Across  dispeopled  ways,  patient  and  slow, 
Saint  Magnus  and  Saint  Dunstan  call  in  vain  : 
From  Wren's  forgotten  belfries,  in  the  rain, 
Down   the  blank  wharves   the  dropping  oc 
taves  go. 

Forbid  not  these  !  Though  no  man  heed,  they 

shower 

A  subtle  beauty  on  the  empty  hour, 
From  all  their  dark  throats  aching  and  out- 
blown  ; 

Aye  in  the  prayerless  places  welcome  most, 
Like  the  last  gull  that  up  some  naked  coast 
Deploys  her  white  and  steady  wing,  alone. 


x.  A  Porch  in  Belgravia 

WHEN,  after  dawn,  the  lordly  houses  hide 
Till  you  fall  foul  of  it,  some  piteous  guest 
(Some  girl  the  damp  stones  gather  to  their 

breast, 

Her  gold  hair  rough,  her  rebel  garment  wide, 
Who  sleeps,  with  all  that  luck  and  life  denied 
Camped  round,  and  dreams  how,  seaward  and 

southwest, 

Blue  over  Devon  farms  the  smoke-rings  rest, 
And  sheep  and  lambs  ascend  the  lit  hillside), 

Dear,  of  your  charity,  speak  low,  step  soft, 
Pray  for  a  sinner.    Planet-like  and  still, 
Best  hearts  of  all  are  sometimes  set  aloft 
Only  to  see  and  pass,  nor  yet  deplore 
Even  Wrong  itself,  crowned  Wrong  inscrut 
able, 
Which  cannot  but  have  been,  for  evermore. 


168 


XL  York  Stairs 

MANY  a  musing  eye  returns  to  thee, 
Against  the  formal  street  disconsolate, 
Who  kept  in  green  domains  thy  bridal  state, 
With  young  tide-waters  leaping  at  thy  knee ; 
And  lest  the  ravening  smoke,  and  enmity, 
Corrode    thee    quite,   thy   lover    sighs,    and 

straight 

Desires  thee  safe  afar,  too  graceful  gate; 
Throned  on  a  terrace  of  the  Boboli. 

Nay,  nay,  thy  use  is  here.    Stand  queenly  thus 
Till  the  next  fury;  teach  the  time  and  us 
Leisure  and  will  to  draw  a  serious  breath : 
Not  wholly  where  thou  art  the  soul  is  cowed, 
Nor  the  fooled  capital  proclaims  aloud 
Barter  is  god,  while  Beauty  perisheth. 


169 


xii.  In  the  Docks 

WHERE  the  bales  thunder  till  the  day  is  done, 
And  the  wild  sounds  with  wilder  odours  cope; 
Where  over  crouching  sail  and  coiling  rope, 
Lascar  and  Moor  along  the  gangway  run ; 
Where  stifled  Thames  spreads  in  the  pallid 

sun, 

A  hive  of  anarchy  from  slope  to  slope ; 
Flag  of  my  birth,  my  liberty,  my  hope, 
I  see  thee  at  the  masthead, joyous  one! 

O  thou  good  guest !  So  oft  as,  young  and  warm, 
To  the  home-wind  thy  hoisted  colours  bound, 
Away,  away  from  this  too  thoughtful  ground, 
Sodden  with  human  trespass  and  despair, 
Thee  only,  from  the  desert,  from  the  storm, 
A  sick  mind  follows  into  Eden  air. 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


170 


NOTES 


NOTES 

The  Kings:  p.  3. 

II  Kings,  vi,  15,  1 6,  17. 

His  Angel  to  his  Mother :   p.  2 1 . 

One  line  of  the  refrain  is  taken  from  an  old  love 
song,  "  Sweet,  if  you  Love  me,  Let  me  Go," 
set  to  a  charming  melody  in  D  major,  and  to  be 
found  in  Chappell's  Popular  Music  of  the  Olden 
Time. 

Beside  Haz lit? s  Grave :  P.  47. 

St.  Anne's,  Soho,  boasts  the  "  sorry  steeple," 
one  of  London's  architectural  absurdities.  Haz- 
litt's  grave  is  grassed  over  and  unmarked,  but 
the  epitaph  which  has  now  for  some  years  stood 
in  place  of  the  interesting  original  one,  may  be 
read  on  the  headstone  set  against  the  outer  west 
wall  of  the  church. 

The  Vigil-at-Arms  :  p.  48. 

Suggested  by  the  very  simple  but  soldierly  mel 
ody  in  Mendelssohn's  Lied  ohne  Worte  in  A, 
Book  I,  Opus  19,  No.  4,  the  last  two  lines  com 
ing  in  for  repetitions. 

A  Friend' s  Song  for  Simoisius:  P.  49. 
Having  to  do  with  Iliad  iv,  473—489. 

173 


©F  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


The  Inner  Fate :  p.  64. 

It  is  perhaps  too  daring  to  force  into  Greek 
forms  any  sentiment  so  dead  against  the  Greek 
spirit  of  determinism. 

The  Acknowledgment :  p.  66. 

"  The  Praetor."  Brutus  in  Shakespeare,  if  not 
the  historical  Brutus. 

The  Cherry  Bough:  p.  70. 

"  Si  quis  adhuc  isthic  meminit  Nasonis  adempti, 
Et  superest  sine  me  nomen  in  urbe  meum." 
Tristia,  Lib.  in,  El.  x. 

u  Atque  aliquis  vestrum,  Nasonis  nomine  dicto, 
Deponat  lacrymis  pocula  mista  suis." 

Idem,  Lib.  v,  El.  iv. 

A  Talisman:  p.  87. 

Many  years  after  these  lines  were  in  print,  it  was 
pointed  out  to  the  author  by  a  friend,  a  student 
of  St.  Bernard,  how  they  have  managed  to  echo 
in  part  a  saying  of  that  great  Doctor,  in  his  De 
Consider atione,  Lib.  I,  Cap.  vin,  Sec.  9  : 
"  Prudentia  item  est  quae  inter  voluptates  et 
necessitates  media,  quasi  quaedam  arbitra  se- 
dens  .  .  .  disterminat  fines  ...  ex  alterutris 
tertiam  formans  virtutem  quam  dicunt  Tempe- 
rantiam." 

'74 


Fifteen  Epitaphs :  p.  91. 

It  may  be  well  to  state  (as  these  have  often  been 
taken  for  translations),  that  they  are  only  pseudo- 
Alexandrian. 

A  Footpath  Morality :  p.  121. 

A  sort  of  floral  log-book  of  a  walk  from  Oxford 
to  Appleton  in  Berkshire,  May,  1908. 

OXFORD 

Ad  Antiquarium;  p.  146. 

This  is  Wood's  disinterested  helper,  John  Au 
brey,  F.  R.  S.,  1626-1697.  Never  was  a  truer 
lover  of  what  he  calls  "  that  most  ingeniose 
Place!" 

Martyrs'  Memorial :  p.  147. 

The  only  monument  in  the  streets  of  Oxford 
was  put  up  by  the  local  Low  Church  party  in 
1841,  not  really  so  much  to  commemorate  Cran- 
mer,  Ridley,  and  Latimer,  all  Cambridge  men, 
as  to  register  a  protest  against  Hurrell  Froude 
(then  dead),  Newman,  and  Keble,  who  all  showed 
frank  disrespect  to  the  heroes  of  the  Reforma 
tion  in  England.  The  reference  in  the  sestet  is 
of  course  to  Cardinal  Newman,  and  was  written 
barely  a  month  before  his  rather  sudden  death 
on  August  n,  1890. 

175 


'Tom:  p.  149. 

The  College  is  a  century  and  a  half  older  than 
the  upper  part  of  its  chief  entrance  gate,  and  the 
once  monastic  bell  is  much  older  than  either. 
"  The  Tom  Tower  [was]  finished  in  Novem 
ber,  1682.  In  this  was  hung  the  bell  called 
Great  Tom  of  Christ  Church,  which  had  origi 
nally  belonged  to  Osney  Abbey.  .  .  From  that 
time  to  this,  it  has  rung  its  one  hundred  and  one 
strokes  every  night  at  nine,  as  a  signal  that  all 
students  should  be  within  their  College  walls. 
It  need  hardly  be  said  that  the  signal  is  not 
obeyed  !  " 

J.  WELLS,  M.  A.,  1901.    Oxford  and  its 
Colleges:  Christ  Church,  pp.  205-206. 

The  Old  Dial  of  Corpus :  p.  153. 

The  great  Dial  in  the  quadrangle  of  Corpus 
Christi  College  was  not  put  up  until  1605, — 
too  late  to  have  been  contemporary  with  either 
Erasmus  or  Pole.  The  author  discovered  the  er 
ror  several  years  ago,  but  has  never  known  how 
to  correct  it  except  by  this  caution.  "  Osney 
Bell "  is  Great  Tom  (see  just  above) :  Christ 
Church  being  next  neighbour  to  Corpus ;  but 
Tom  may  or  may  not  have  been  in  place  and 
condition  to  ring  for  curfew  in  the  second  year 
of  Queen  Elizabeth's  reign.  The  closing  line  is 

176 


meant  to  refer  to  the  motto  of  the  University, 
Dominus  illuminatio  mea,  taken  from  the  open 
ing  of  Psalm  xxvu. 

Undertones  at  Magdalen:  p.  156. 

"  The  priestless  Pulpit "  was  an  accurate  descrip 
tion  when  this  sonnet  was  written  (1895),  though 
it  is  so  no  longer.  From  the  open-air  Pulpit 
of  Magdalen,  disused  since  the  Reformation,  a 
Sermon  is  once  again  delivered  annually  on  St. 
John  Baptist's  Day. 

LONDON 

St.  Peter-ad-Vincula :  p.  161. 

St.  Peter-ad-Vincula  is  the  ancient  and  sadly 
appropriate  dedication  of  the  Church  near  the 
Beauchamp  Tower  and  the  site  of  the  scaffold. 
The  vaults  are  under  the  chancel. 

York  Stairs  :  p.  169. 

Inigo  Jones'  Water  Gate,  standing  on  the  Em 
bankment  at  the  foot  of  Villiers  Street,  Strand, 
now  a  long  way  from  the  river,  is  still  called 
York  Stairs.  It  is  the  sole  surviving  appanage 
of  the  great  town-house  of  the  seventeenth-cen 
tury  Dukes  of  Buckingham. 


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